Woodward 2007 Understanding Material Culture ( BOOK)

UNDERSTANDING ’

MATERIAL CULTURE

IAN WOODWARD 1

Understanding Material
Culture

Ian Woodward

(^)SAGE Publications

'55' Los Angeles ■ London ■ New Delhi ■ Singapore

© Ian Woodward 2007

First published 2007

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Contents

Acknowledgements v

Preface vi

PART I LOCATING MATERIAL CULTURE 1

1 The Material as Culture.

Definitions, Perspectives, Approaches 3

2 Studying Material Culture. Origins and Premises 17

PART II THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING

MATERIAL CULTURE 33

3 The Deceptive, Suspicious Object.

Marxist and Critical Approaches 35

4 The Object as Symbolic Code. Structural and

Semiotic Approaches 57

5 The Material Representing the Cultural Universe.

Objects, Symbols and Cultural Categories 84

PART III OBJECTS IN ACTION 111

6 Objects and Distinction. The Aesthetic Field and

Expressive Materiality 113

7 Material Culture and Identity. Objects and the Self 133

8 Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance.

Objects in Contexts 151

IV

Contents

PART IV CONCLUSION 169

9 Conclusion: Objects and Meaning in Consumer Culture 171

References 177

Index 185

Acknowledgements

There were a number of people who were encouraging and helpful during
the conception of this book and I thank them for their generosity and will¬
ingness to share their time and experience: Janeen Baxter, Michael
Emmison, Gavin Kendall, Zlatko Skrbis, Philip Smith and Mark Western
gave valuable advice at the planning and preparation stages. A smaller
group read and commented upon earlier versions of the work, and their
insights, criticisms and suggestions were greatly valued. Thank you to
Michael Emmison, Gavin Kendall, Zlatko Skrbis, Philip Smith and Brad
West for the time they gave to carefully read these drafts.

Thanks to Griffith University's Centre for Public Culture and Ideas for
assistance with the final preparation of the manuscript. Here, I am grate¬
ful for Daniel Hourigan's eye for detail. I am also appreciative of the gen¬
erosity of Yale University's Center for Cultural Sociology, its Directors
and Fellows, who hosted me for a spell in 2005 during which I worked on
this manuscript. To get there, I thank my senior colleagues at Griffith, Kay
Ferres and Wayne Hudson, for their encouragement and assistance.

Preface

Our lives are characterised by innumerable encounters with objects. We
pick objects up, use them in myriad ways, act with them to achieve ends
as mundane as whisking an egg, sending an e-mail, playing a board game
and drinking a cup of coffee, and move on to our next object-mediated
encounter. Objects are routinely, mundanely, part of everyday existence.
Moreover, beyond this pragmatic view, even the most commonplace object
has the capacity to symbolise the deepest human anxieties and aspirations.
On the basis of their taken-for-grantedness and ubiquity one should not
conclude such everyday objects are unimportant. People tend to think it is
they who control and direct objects, electing to use them on their own
terms. In a sense this assumption is entirely correct. However, this book
tries to show that in important ways objects have a type of power over us.
By this it is not meant that objects deceive, disappoint, exploit and com¬
mand us through rounds of consumerist desire or technological domina¬
tion. Rather, people require objects to understand and perform aspects of
selfhood, and to navigate the terrain of culture more broadly.

This book surveys the field of contemporary material culture through
an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship
on objects, commodities, consumption and symbolisation. Its main goal is
to give a concise, but diverse, review of the ways of studying the material
as culture. The book is not meant to serve as an examination of any one
version of contemporary 'material culture studies'. Nevertheless, the
interest in people-object relations it develops is distinctly indebted to the
recent round of material culture studies that has emanated from London.
This oeuvre has been groundbreaking in bringing to bear a large body of
relevant anthropological concepts to contemporary consumption. Readers
familiar with this body of work will certainly notice its influence here.
However, the intention here is to move beyond - and indeed back from -
this work to consider a wider range of foundational and contemporary
theoretical and empirical literature on objects, including work from the
fields of classical social theory, consumer research, psychoanalytic theory,
sub-cultural theory and social performance theory. The work originates
broadly from what could be called a cultural sociological perspective,
though it cannot claim to be a complete application of cultural sociology's
strong programme (see Alexander, 2003) in the field of material culture stud¬
ies. What it does share is cultural sociology's desire to understand social life
through the application of structural and hermeneutic approaches to capture
discourses, narratives, codes and symbols which situate objects, along

Preface vii

with their interpretation, symbolic manipulation and individual performance
within a variety of social contexts.

The treatment the book gives to studying objects as elements of culture
will be relevant to a diverse audience, but especially those with an interest
in consumption, identity and theories of culture generally Its arguments
and coverage develop from a desire to advance consumption studies
through investigating objects of consumption. As Mary Douglas and
Baron Isherwood pointed out in their important work The World of Goods
([1996]1979) - reiterating the principle of 'bonnes d penser' Claude Levi-
Strauss established in his structural anthropology - people construct a
universe of meaning through commodities, they use these objects to make
visible and stable cultural categories, to deploy discriminating values and
to mark aspects of their self and others. Thus, this book works from a
premise that to study the objects themselves, and people's relations with
them, is an effective analytic strategy for understanding modern con¬
sumption and indeed culture broadly.

The book has four parts.

1. Locating material culture. Chapters 1 and 2 comprise the concep¬
tual and definitional components. They present key terms, principles and
concepts for studying objects as culture. Outlines of diverse ways of imag¬
ining and studying objects are provided, along with a discussion of key dis¬
ciplinary fields that study objects. To give readers a feeling for researching
object meanings in the field, original research case studies and examples
are used to show readers how objects do cultural work, in practice.

2. Theoretical approaches to studying material culture. Chapters 3, 4
and 5 give detailed reviews and interpretations of the three major
approaches to thinking about objects: (i) Marxism and critical theory, (ii)
structuralism and semiotics, (iii) cultural and symbolic approaches. The
discussion in each chapter is generally chronological, picking up on key
theorists, major works and the important principles of each of these theo¬
retical frameworks. Each chapter concludes with a critical discussion of
major points of the approach, strong and weak points, and an annotated
discussion of recommended further readings.

3. Objects in action. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 move from the theoretical
bases for studying objects to diverse social and psychological fields of
social relations where objects matter. In these chapters people-object rela¬
tions are investigated in the following fields: (i) status and cultural dis¬
tinction, (ii) social and personal identity, and (iii) narrative and social
performance. These chapters allow readers to consider the complexities of
people-object relations in varied contexts, though ones generally framed
through fields of consumption, including fashion, the home and material
displays of cultural affiliation and identification.

4. Conclusion. Chapter 9 concludes the work, offering a brief sum¬
mary of key aspects of the book, and develops a theoretical agenda for
understanding material culture.

PARTI

LOCATING MATERIAL CULTURE

ONE

The Material as Culture.

Definitions, Perspectives, Approaches

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter introduces material culture studies and demonstrates
the usefulness of the material culture approach. It has two main
sections which:

• introduce key principles, terms and associated terminologies in
the study of material culture

• demonstrate the application of the material culture approach
through case studies.

Living in a material world

Objects are the material things people encounter, interact with and use.
Objects are commonly spoken of as material culture. The term 'material cul¬
ture' emphasises how apparently inanimate things within the environment
act on people, and are acted upon by people, for the purposes of carrying
out social functions, regulating social relations and giving symbolic mean¬
ing to human activity. Objects range in scale and size from discrete items
such as a pencil, key, coin or spoon, through to complex, network objects
such as an airliner, motor vehicle, shopping mall or computer. Traditionally,
however, the term material culture has referred to smaller objects that
are portable. Although scholars from a variety of disciplines have studied
objects, their uses and meanings since the beginnings of modem social
science scholarship, it is only in relatively recent times that the field of
'material culture studies' has been articulated as an area of inquiry.

The field of material culture studies (hereafter abbreviated to MCS) is
a recent nomenclature that incorporates a range of scholarly inquiry into
the uses and meanings of objects. It affords a multidisciplinary vantage
point into human-object relations, where the contributions of anthropology.

4

Locating Material Culture

sociology, psychology, design and cultural studies are valued. Material
culture is no longer the sole concern of museum scholars and archaeologists -
researchers from a wide range of fields have now colonised the study of
objects. As well as fostering productive multidisciplinary approaches to
objects, MCS can provide a useful vehicle for synthesis of macro and micro,
or structural and interpretive approaches in the social sciences. By studying
culture as something created and lived through objects, we can better
understand both social structures and larger systemic dimensions such as
inequality and social difference, and also human action, emotion and mean¬
ing. Objects might be seen then, as a crucial link between the social and
economic structure, and the individual actor. If we think of the material cul¬
ture of consumer societies, they are in fact the point where mass-produced
consumer objects are encountered and used by individuals, who must
establish and negotiate their own meanings and incorporate such objects
into their personal cultural and behavioural repertoires, sometimes chal¬
lenging and sometimes reproducing social structure.

A primary assertion of MCS is that objects have the ability to signify
things - or establish social meanings - on behalf of people, or do 'social
work', though this culturally communicative capacity should not be auto¬
matically assumed. Objects might signify sub-cultural affinity, occupation,
participation in a leisure activity, or social status. Furthermore, objects
become incorporated into, and represent, wider social discourses related
to extensively held norms and values enshrined in norms and social insti¬
tutions. In a complimentary fashion, objects also carry personal and emo¬
tional meanings, they can facilitate interpersonal interactions and assist a
person to act upon him or herself. For example, wearing certain clothing
may make a person feel empowered by altering their self-perception. Objects,
then, can assist in forming or negating interpersonal and group attach¬
ments, mediating the formation of self-identity and esteem, and integrat¬
ing and differentiating social groups, classes or tribes.

When studying and accounting for material culture, one needs to keep
in mind the relative viewpoints of the analyst and actor. For the analyst to
perform a virtuoso analytic deconstruction of any given object is by no
means easy, but it is uncomplicated by the idiosyncracies, incoherencies
and sheer mundanity of the user's perspective. Take Barthes' (1993[1957j)
classic essays on aspects of French culture in his book Mythologies as
an example. As elegant and instructive as these essays are, one wonders
about the equivalence between the manner in which everyday users of
such objects perceive them, and Barthes' sophisticated textual 'reading' of
them. Furthermore, it is not just a matter of individuals pondering what
objects might mean, but individuals reading objects in relation to other
individuals within complex intergroup networks patterned by social sta¬
tus and role, and space-time contexts. For the analyst then, the object can
be rendered all-powerful, perfectly understandable and historically crucial
in the course of any literary reflection. However, once the voice of the user
is introduced, clarity and certainty give way to multiple interpretations.

The Material as Culture

5

practices and manipulations. What was once fixed by analytic measure
and conceptual clarity alone melts away

The current interest in material culture is associated with two key
developments in the social sciences: the profusion of research into con¬
sumption across a range of disciplines, and the rise of poststructural and
interpretive theory. Attention to objects as rudimentary elements of con¬
sumer culture has acquired renewed status in socio-cultural accounts
of consumption processes in late-modern societies. This interest in con¬
sumption objects is also tied up with broader developments in social the¬
ory, particularly the so-called 'cultural turn'. Although social scientists
have historically had an enduring concern for the material constituents of
culture (Goffman, 1951; Mauss, 1967[1954]; Simmel, 1904[1957]; Veblen,
1899[1934]), the recent interest in objects has developed in the context of
prominent socio-cultural accounts of modern consumerism, and in turn,
the emphasis these have given to the material basis of consumption processes,
and the cultural meanings that colonise such objects as they move through
social landscapes (Appadurai, 1986; Douglas and Isherwood, [1996]1979;
Miller, 1987; Riggins, 1994). The second development is connected to the
general turn toward language, culture, sites and spaces in poststructural
social theory, and the associated interest beyond traditional social scien¬
tific analytic categories associated with 'big' social forces like class, gen¬
der and race. Linked with the rise of poststructural theory is an interest in
the importance of different variables and sites in social formation and
transformation such as the body, space and objects. These approaches
don't ignore social-structural dimensions; however they do consider them
in a contextualised, grounded way. As well as interpretive and textual
work in the humanities and cultural anthropology (such as Clifford
Geertz), the work of Foucault has been of major importance in this devel¬
opment, for it takes social scientists away from studying traditional
macro, structural patterns and directs their interest to discourses, tech¬
nologies and strategies that are applied at the level of ideas, the body, time
and space, as techniques for social governance. While Foucault generally
ignores questions of meaning and interpretation that are the central focus
of the current work, he has made us aware that it is through the micro¬
physics of temporal and spatial organisation that social power and control
is both established and challenged. Objects such as the guillotine, the
uniform, the timetable, the school writing desk, or the panopticon - which
is the central motif in his work Discipline and Punish - are important mate¬
rial tools in the establishment of such capillaries of power, rather than
mere 'props' or environmental filler.

How can objects be ‘cultural’? A selection of case studies

Having made some preliminary progress, the best way to proceed is
to think about objects and culture through practical applications and

6

Locating Material Culture

exemplar cases. This section emphasises the varied capacities of objects
to do cultural and social work. In particular, the following case studies
demonstrate the diverse capacities of objects to afford meaning, perform
relations of power, and construct selfhood. The three sections show how
objects can be (i) used as markers of value, (ii) used as markers of identity
and (iii) encapsulations of networks of cultural and political power.

Objects as social markers

It is in Bourdieu's (1984) writing on taste that the idea of objects as markers
of aesthetic and cultural value is most thoroughly developed. Bourdieu
emphasises the role of aesthetic choice - one's tastes - in reproducing social
inequality. Bourdieu usurped the (Kantian) idea that judgements of taste
are based upon objective and absolute criteria by showing that particular
social and class fractions tended to have distinctive taste preferences, which
amounts to professing a liking for certain objects over others. Moreover,
dominant social groups have the authority to define the parameters of
cultural value (e.g. notions of what is 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' culture),
thus devaluing working class modes of judgement as 'unaesthetic'. In con¬
sumer societies where taste becomes a highly visible marker of difference,
such judgements are implicated in structures of social position and status.
Importantly, aesthetic choice is so thoroughly learnt and ingrained that
class markers are expressed in the body, self-presentation and performance.
Simple learning of cultural and aesthetic rules may not be enough, as one's
demeanour and comportment ('bodily hexis', in Bourdieu's words) can sel¬
dom succeed in betraying one's class origins.

With this brief overview of Bourdieu's theory of aesthetic judgement
in mind, one can progress to consider the following case studies where
objects act as markers of aesthetic value and of self-identity. These cases
were gathered as part of a larger project into the narrativisation of
aesthetic judgement, which is more fully discussed elsewhere (see
Woodward, 2001, 2003; Woodward and Emmison, 2001). Note that it is not
just the actual objects these respondents choose to discuss which is impor¬
tant, but also the content of their talk about the object. The object is given
meaning through the narrativisation of broader discourses of self, identity
and biography, which link aesthetics to ethics of self, and social identity.
So, when you read the following case studies, look not just at the ivhat (i.e.
the actual object), but the zvhy and how (i.e. the narrative and performative
accompaniment) of aesthetic judgement.

Helen

For Helen, a chair that sits in a comer of her main bedroom is an object
which exemplifies her aesthetic taste. In the research interview, Helen
interprets the chair through an aesthetic frame, reflecting on its style

The Material as Culture

7

and design and how she feels this fits with her self-presentation.
Throughout the interview, Helen portrays a high level of aesthetic
competence - in Bourdieu's terms, she has mastered the 'symmetries
and correspondences' (1984: 174) associated with her choices. As a
result, she is able to contextualise her own choices within wider social
and aesthetic trends with a degree of high cultural authority, bringing
a range of cultural knowledges and expertise to bear on her discus¬
sion of the chair.

Helen is someone who places a high value on appropriate home
styles and choices, to the extent that she works with an interior
designer through important phases of home renovation. Helen and
her partner are both professionals in high-salary positions. Helen
lives in the inner north east of the city on top of a prominent hill with
outstanding views to the city's east toward the ocean. In terms of
questions of taste and style, Helen could be classified as 'modern
classicist': one who is committed to traditional, classic notions of
'good taste' which are based on subtle colour combinations founded
in whites and creams, with soft blues and greens as highlight
colours. Helen's aesthetic choices are not directed towards the bright
or ostentatious. Rather, decorative schemes are themed consistently
through the house, employ neutral-based colours, and present an
image of understatement and timelessness that are typically
ascribed characteristics of classic 'good taste'. Asked during the
interview to describe her own style, Helen responds:

Pretty minimalist, without being minimalist in terms of futuristic
minimalist. I certainly tend to be a . . . it’s the same with the way I dress,
fairly uncluttered, fairly simple, clean lines, certainly very neutral in
colours, simple patterns, very classic I guess.

Helen has such a well developed conception of what constitutes her
style that she is able to adroitly sum up her aesthetic values through
the use of an exemplar object - a chair that stands in a prominent
comer of the main bedroom. Helen uses the chair as a prop for her
account. The chair - apart from its functional or use value which is
not addressed by Helen - is an object that signifies, and summarises,
the style of its owner and the desired ambience of the whole house.
The chair's simplicity, neutrality and classical enduring style are
instructive:

I can’t see myself ever really taking the plunge and going really bright
with the upholstery. As I said, in the main bedroom, come in and I’ll
show you, it’s probably the most recent. To me that chair, that sums up
my idea. That’s me, I love that. That sort of cream, neutral, New
England look.

8

Locating Material Culture

Helen's chair then sits as an example, reminding her of the bounds of
her own aesthetic variance which she describes as: 'really simple pat¬
terns and simple colours and again very neutral'. There are no serious
or problematic issues to be faced in the chair. For example, some may
wonder whether investing such importance in this chair is trivial, or
overly materialistic. The most challenging issue for Helen is the pro¬
gressive 'modernisation' of her taste and the chance that the chair will
no longer fit variations in her style. However, Helen feels that such
variations are unlikely to challenge the basic, well-honed values of her
modem, classic aesthetic: 'I don't think I'll ever be ultra-modem, but
I think I'll go a little less cottagey'. One of the impressive, important
aspects of Helen's aesthetic value system is the degree to which it is a
finely tuned, almost 'technical' (Bennett et al., 1999: 56), scheme of
knowledge. Its basis is so thoroughly realised in Helen that the
nuanced distinctions she makes of shade and style in this piece of
material culture are rendered entirely natural.

Christina

The following section turns to a different case altogether, using inter¬
view data from the same research project. Christina lives in the same
suburb as Helen, though with a less prestigious view, and is approxi¬
mately the same age (early to mid-30s). However, her aesthetic choices
and the reasoning and narrativisation that accompany them, are
widely different. Christina has lived in this house, originally the fam¬
ily home, for over 25 years. Now without both parents, the house
belongs to Christina and her sister. The house is an architect-designed
bungalow built in the late 1940s. Christina's family was originally from
a farming region, and Christina retains a strong affinity for the country
despite her privileged private school education, which she now rails
against. Christina sets apart her own identity from what she sees as the
snob-based culture of most in her suburb to the extent that she has now
centred important aspects of her life in different parts of the city:

Christina (C): I live my social life in other suburbs, I certainly started off

doing the old ‘creek’ ‘hammo’ [Landmark local pubs frequented
by upwardly mobile, socially conservative young people] sort of
deal ... because I went to St Margaret’s, and most of the
people were private school around here - we had Churchie boys, we
had Grammar next door, we had Churchie [ these names refer to elite,
‘private’ secondary schools] down the road, Ascot state school was
about as state school as it got . . . everyone went to Ascot ‘til grade seven
and then went off to their private schools at enormous expense ... urn,
that was when I first started but then it didn’t really suit me very much

The Material as Culture

9

so I sort of moved on to different sorts of people so I hang out at
Mansfield [a middle-class, rather unmarkable suburb in the mid to
outer zone of the city] suburb these days to tell you the truth ...

Interviewer {I ): So you have friends out there?

C: yeah, yeah ...

/: So what sort of activities do you get into, what sort of lifestyle and

leisure things do you like?

C: well ... I suppose pretty much the pub sort of scene really, just a

few pubs, go to the football a bit, go to the races a bit, I don’t go
to the races as much as I used to, that’s more for this sort of crowd.
And I do a lot of things on my own really, I just go over there, I’ve
got a boyfriend over there and spend a few nights and that’s about
it really ...

/: Were your parents more into this scene?

C: Well, it was a single parent family and mother actually came from

out west, but that’s probably why we didn’t jump straight into this,
she knew a few people who had country links but she didn’t really
know this sort of snob value group here ...

This is important contextual material for the aesthetic stance maintained by

Christina, which is relatively hostile to conventional concerns about colour, design

and style:

C: I’ve always been totally disinterested in decor, I don’t care as long

as there’s a seat, a kitchen and a bed, that’s all I really care about

/.- so you don’t have an interest in it?

C: no, don’t care, really don’t care ... I like clean, I like neat, but I

don’t care if it sort of clashes or whatever.

Christina moves to distance herself from mainstream ideas about taste
and style, on the basis of its elitist nature, its lack of person-centred
authenticity, and its perceived lack of relevance to her key leisure
interests: cable television, pub culture, football and clothes shop¬
ping. This anti-style position is reflected in one of the objects
Christina chooses to discuss in the interview - what she calls the
'wartishog':

I’m a bit of a wood girl, and I can show you another piece that I like I’ll
bring it to you ... I got this over in Africa for $50, and one of my friends
did it up for me ... I like the warthog, my cousin’s been living in Africa
for about seven years, we just went over there I think it was two years
ago and did a driving holiday around South Africa and it was just in

10

Locating Material Culture

one of those reserves, it’s really a game park, a lot of them carve
them, but he was just a really good piece ... but not finished, totally
unfinished, that sheen, the finish has been done since I’ve been back,
which has made it come up a whole lot better ... he’s just unique,
everyone goes ‘ughhh ... what’s that!!!’ ... wartishog ... I sort of like
oddities I suppose, something that no one else has got that’s a bit
weird you know ... not because it’s really expensive but because it’s a
bit weird ... it’s unique, you’re not going to find things like that in many
houses in Hamilton, are you?

As an object the 'wartishog' seems to have been chosen partly for its
perceived lack of conventional beauty or fashionability - for its
aggressively anti-style position. Seen in this context, Christina
adopts a strongly political attitude toward conventional prescrip¬
tions of taste, which has its origins in an anti-fashion outlook. At the
same time, Christina's stance is display-oriented, because of its
emphasis on the shock-value of the object, manifested through its
perceived strangeness or quirkiness. The sign-value of the object for
Christina is thus not based in conventional standards of beauty or
taste. Its value lies in the same domain as other status objects, but
obtains its currency through different signifiers: physically shocking
rather than refined and understated, provocative rather than calm¬
ing, aggressive rather than peaceful. In addition, it is apparent that
the wartishog is strongly associated with Christina's experiences of
travel, family and friends. It is an exotic object (Riggins, 1994),
linked to a specific touring experience and the contacts with friends
and family involved in such travel. These two cases show how people
attach various meanings to commonplace objects, using them to
think through and account for aspects of self and society more
broadly.

Objects as markers of identity

As the previous examples show, separating aesthetic claims from narratives
or claims about self-identity in the study of objects is somewhat futile, for
in everyday talk - and especially within the artificial setting of a research
interview - a personal aesthetic choice is generally required to be accompa¬
nied by a justification. Such justifications - which sociologists might classify
as being a matter of 'aesthetics' - are rarely couched in purely aesthetic
terms, but associated with matters of self-identity and a range of external
factors (such as, for example, monetary cost or needs associated with one's
life stage). So, while it is rare for respondents to ignore matters of identity
in relation to possessions (even when they are 'aesthetic' possessions), the
following case looks at a very private object with a high degree of personal
meaning and a very strong association with personal identity - a bible. The

The Material as Culture

11

bible - like any sacred religious text - is perhaps the ultimate case of a mass-
produced object retaining a powerful aura. Even though it is an important
spiritual text, it is also an object of mass production with a vast circulation.
At odds with the status of a sacred text, a bible originates from nowhere
special, essentially having the same qualities as any other mass-produced
textbook or magazine. Yet, it manages to retain an aura of authority. The fol¬
lowing case is not just about any bible, for example, the sort you may find
in a bedside table draw when staying at a hotel, but a highly personalised,
customised object.

A bible is an object that is not generally displayed or carried in public,
but reserved for particular occasions and rituals. It may symbolise deeply
held, cherished values for Christians, and may be respected by people as
a possible legitimate moral code whether or not they are Christian. Yet,
depending on your attitude to religion, the bible can also be an object with
particular stigmas attached - for example, its association with Christianity
as a form of moral imperialism and entrepreneurship, morally and socially
conservative values generally, and adherence to strict or anachronistic
moral codes. This said, the bible may seem an entirely appropriate
accoutrement for a conservative Christian to carry or exhibit, but what
about a university student majoring in philosophy and sociology? The
following case study considers university student Sarah, through her own
words, who nominates her bible as a focal object for understanding her
identity.

Sarah

For Sarah, her Christian faith is a crucial aspect of her identity which
defines her life's direction and meaning. She wishes to live her life
consistent with Christian beliefs and perceives a significant differ¬
ence between her life choices and the life choices those of those who
do not have such beliefs. Her bible is symbolic of her beliefs and, she
says, offers her a way of 'fighting' the social pressures that could
pull her away from such beliefs:

My bible comes to represent my identity, and to shape it. When I say
that it represents me I do not mean that it is simply any bible that can
express my identity. It is with the book that I saved to pay for, that I
hand covered, and that I have spent hours poring over, and some¬
times crying over, that I identify.

Sarah's bible represents her decision to identify with the Christian
beliefs as defining parts of her personal search for direction and
meaning. Yet, she cannot control the way the bible is perceived by
others, and recognises that some people may perceive it with suspicion.
Hence, she reports some anxiety about how the object is perceived by

12

Locating Material Culture

others, especially amongst young people and particularly her peers at
university - 'my nervousness about carrying the bible in public . . . can
in some ways be seen to indicate the pressure I feel to conform to a
more secular lifestyle'. While the bible carries special, significant
meanings for her, she also recognises that it may signify conservative,
restrictive values to others. Her response is to customise the bible,
transforming it from a mass-produced object into a personalised
object that serves to deconstruct typical notions of how a bible (and a
Christian) should appear. One might say the pressures she feels relate
to (apparently) contradictory roles or membership category locations -
sociology and philosophy student, Christian, alternative university
student, member of a youth sub-culture. Sarah has customised a
young person's bible:

My fear of being misunderstood can be seen in the way I adorn my
bible. I am aware of the hypocrisy of many people who share my belief
in God and choose not to live a life that exemplifies this, and so I wrap
my bible in corduroy and fill it with poetry so that an observer can see
that it is something I treasure. I want people to see that it is interpolated
into my life, and that it interacts with other parts of my identity ... It is
because I am afraid of being seen as a traditional rule-focused
Christian that I need to cover my bible and fill its pockets with other
identity markers.

Sarah's bible is then a marker of who 'Sarah' is, both in terms of her
social identity and for Sarah herself. Furthermore, its meaning is
mediated through popular and contradictory discourses related to
Christianity, youth and being a university student that Sarah has to
negotiate as she reflexively monitors her identity. Her bible thus
retains its core meaning to her as a spiritual guide, but, in its cus¬
tomised form, helps Sarah to socially mediate aspects of her identity,
given the multiple social locations her identity intersects (youth,
alternative lifestyles, Christian, university student).

Objects as sites of cultural and political power

In this oeuvre, which emerged from new theorisations of the relations
between people and technology, objects are constructed by particular
power relations, and in turn also actively construct such relations. In this
tradition, known as actant-network theory, objects are produced by par¬
ticular networks of cultural and political discourses and, in conjunction
with humans, act to reproduce such relations. So, the discourses and net¬
works which connect people to objects are not only inextricable as if they
are one actor, but may in fact be 'made of the same stuff' (Mackenzie and
Wajcman, 1999: 25). Arising from work in the sociology of science and

The Material as Culture

13

technology, actant-network theory tends to focus on new technology
objects such as mobile telephones, machinery which 'acts for' people such
as remote controls, speed-bumps or door-grooms, and 'technological net¬
work' objects like aeroplanes, buildings and motor vehicles. The next sec¬
tion discusses Foucault's famous example of the panopticon to explain
how objects are at the centre of discourses and networks of power, and
how they 'act' to influence human action. Since Foucault died before
the current research on 'actant-networks' arose he is not identified with
that field. However, his work can be seen as developing some important
themes taken up by the current group of actant-network scholars.

Foucault's genealogical studies of the prison, the hospital and the asy¬
lum plot the emergence of historical discourses which condition the
formation of social institutions and practical knowledges. They might be
said to be historical studies, but first and foremost chart a genealogical
history of the present. Therefore, Discipline and Punish is not a history of
punishment and incarceration. Rather, it is a history of oscillating histori¬
cal discourses surrounding punishment. The conclusion it reaches has
implications more far-reaching than understanding the history of incar¬
ceration. The corpus of work is to be found in the case studies presented
by Foucault in the book's opening chapter which deals with how the body
of the condemned prisoner is treated. In these, he juxtaposes the story of
Damiens, guilty of regicide and committed to make the amende honorable,
with the rules drawn up by Faucher for a house of young prisoners in
Paris. Drawn from newspaper sources, the story of Damiens' execution is
entirely gory and sanguineous, with the body's destruction the focus of
the state's brutal revenge. This account contrasts starkly with Faucher 's
rules for prisoners which emphasise routines, classifications and timetables
which serve to discipline the prisoner's body, or make it docile. Only
80 years separates these divergent penal styles. Both strategies focus on
the body. However, one makes a spectacle of bodily humiliation, the other
takes place out of public view and touches the body lightly, and only to
direct its routines on a spatial and temporal plane.

This novel penology forms the basis of new economies of power which
play on the body and soul in various subtle but highly efficient ways. It is
this new mode of power, generalised throughout society, which Foucault
heralds as paradigmatic of disciplinary society. While the emblem of the
classical age of punishment was public torture and spectacle, Foucault
argues that modernity has abandoned this for the architectonic configura¬
tion of the panopticon (first proposed by the utilitarian philosopher
Jeremy Bentham). The panopticon is thus a product of emergent dis¬
courses about the nature of punishment, and its relation to the body and
soul. Without the existence of ideas about discipline and surveillance, it
cannot exist. But more than this, the panopticon as an object of technology
acts for people. The insidious elegance of the panopticon's design
(through the use of lighting and architectural form) is that it allows for the
efficient surveillance of a prison population, for prisoners cannot tell with

14

Locating Material Culture

certainty if they are being surveilled or not. Faced with this ambiguity
and their relative powerlessness as prisoners, they are encouraged to
self-monitor their behaviour under the assumption that they are under
surveillance at all times.

The panopticon is thus an object which is the product of historical
changes in discourses about punishment, and which - although
'inanimate' - as a product of its design 'acts' to achieve political and
organisational ends. In this way, the distinctions between the discourses
about punishment, the panopticon as material object and the human
actors involved (in the first instance prisoners and guards) can be seen to
result from a network of understandings and relations - as 'enactments of
strategic logics' (Law, 2002: 92) - about punishment and control of the
body. Furthermore, the distinction between the panopticon as merely an
'object' and the humans who designed and inhabit it is of minor impor¬
tance, as the object and human actors perform in concert to achieve
certain ends.

Defining ‘material culture’

Having presented introductory material and considered a range of cases
that fuse with selected theoretical ideas which give a flavour for how
objects can carry cultural meanings, the final section of the chapter
defines the key terminology of material culture studies. Studies of mater¬
ial culture have as their primary concern the mutual relations between
people and objects. In particular, studies of material culture are concerned
with what uses people put objects to and what objects do for, and to,
people. Furthermore, scholars working in the field of material culture
studies aim to analyse how these relations are one of the important ways
in which culture - and the meanings upon which culture is based - are
transmitted, received and produced. Readers will observe from the previ¬
ous case studies that objects have various symbolic meanings for people,
as much as their physical presence is important in structuring the prag¬
matic aspects of social life. In its popular scholarly usage, the term 'mate¬
rial culture' is generally taken to refer to any material object (e.g. shoes,
cup, pen) or network of material objects (e.g. house, car, shopping mall)
that people perceive, touch, use and handle, carry out social activities
within, use or contemplate.

Material culture is, chiefly, something portable and perceptible by
touch and therefore has a physical, material existence that is one compo¬
nent of human cultural practice. Moreover, consistent with contemporary
work in consumption studies that emphasises the mental or ideational
aspects of consumption desires which are mobilised through media and
advertising, material culture also includes things perceptible by sight.
This ability to visualise material culture allows it to enter the imaginary
realm of fantasy and desire, so that objects are also acted upon in the

The Material as Culture

15

mind as 'dreams and pleasurable dramas' which are the basis of ongoing
desires for objects of consumption (Campbell, 1987: 90). Having made this
point, it is important to note that in everyday practice this distinction
between discrete physical, embodied and ideational elements of material
culture is indistinguishable and artificial - objects are culturally powerful
because in practice they connect physical and mental manipulation.

What term is best to describe the 'material' component of material cul¬
ture studies? The term 'material culture' is often used in conjunction with
'things', 'objects', 'artefacts', 'goods', 'commodities' and, more recently,
'actants'. These terms (with the exception of the last) are, for most pur¬
poses, used interchangeably. There are, however, some important nuances
in the meaning of each term, which help to demarcate the context in
which it should be used. We can begin with the most general term and
move to the most specific. 'Things' have a concrete and real material exis¬
tence but the word 'thing' suggests an inanimate or inert quality, requir¬
ing that actors bring things to life through imagination or physical
activity. 'Objects' are discrete components of material culture that are per¬
ceptible by touch or sight. 'Artefacts' are the physical products or traces
of human activity. Like objects, they have importance because of their
materiality or concreteness, and become the subject of retrospective inter¬
pretation and ordering. Artefacts are generally regarded as symbolic of
some prior aspect of cultural or social activity. 'Goods' are objects that are
produced under specific market relations, typically assumed to be capital¬
ism, where they are assigned value within a system of exchange. The
word 'commodity' is a technical expression related to the concept of a
'good'. Similarly, a commodity is something that can be exchanged.
Objects enter into and out of spheres of commoditisation, so that an object
that is now a commodity might not always remain a commodity due to its
incorporation into private or ritual worlds of individuals, families and cul¬
tures. 'Actant' is a term developed from recent approaches in the sociol¬
ogy of science and technology which refers to entities - both human and
non-human - which have the ability to 'act' socially. By dissolving the
boundary between people who 'act' and objects which are seen as inani¬
mate or 'outside', the term 'actant' is designed to overcome any a priori
distinction between the social, technological and natural worlds, and
emphasises the inextricable links between humans and material things.

When using any of these terms there is a danger of reification - that is,
of imagining that objects are simply there for human actors to engage
with or use up, as though they exist apart from cultural and social history,
narrative and codes. Kopytoff (1986) points out that in western thought a
mythic dichotomy exists between the notion of 'individualised' persons
and 'commoditised' things which has constructed an inflexible and limit¬
ing binary for understanding the relations between persons and things.
What's more, there is a danger in pursuing a hard distinction between
objects as part of an artefactual world and the other natural world (Miller,
1994: 407). As Miller argues, we should take care to recognise that 'the

16

Locating Material Culture

continual process by which meaning is giving to things is the same
process by which meaning is given to lives' (1994: 417).What's more, some
theorists are of the opinion it may be of greater use to collapse such dis¬
tinctions and see a radical dissolution of the human/non-human distinc¬
tion, as suggested by actor, or 'actant', network theory. According to this
theory, objects are not only defined by their material quality, but by their
location within systems of narrative and logic laid out by social dis¬
courses related to technology, culture, economy and politics. Objects exist
within networks of relations that serve to define, mediate and order them,
and which in turn are 'acted upon' by such objects and human subjects,
affording them purpose and meaning within a system of social relations
(Law, 2002: 91-2). In other words, objects exist because social, cultural and
political forces define them as objects within systems of relations with
other objects.

Whatever term one chooses to apply in a given context - whether it is
objects, actants, material culture, things or goods - one needs only look to
their immediate surroundings to find examples. It is this endless diversity
and ordinariness of subjects for study that makes material culture studies
fascinating and fundamental to understanding culture.

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Lury’s Consumer Culture (1996) is a concise and interesting critical review of a
range of literatures within the related field of consumption studies. Particularly
useful is Chapter 2 of this work, which investigates the link between consumer
culture and material culture. Douglas and Isherwood’s The World of Goods
(1199611979) is a foundational work, uniquely combining insights from the
disciplines of economics and anthropology. Much of what Douglas and Isherwood
say about the uses of material culture has since become elemental to contempo¬
rary studies of material culture. The principle ideas of the work are expressed in
Chapters 3 and 4. Kopytoff’s (1986) essay is also important to defining the current
field and requires some close reading. This essay on the cultural biography of
things explains how objects have biographies and discusses the way objects
are commoditised and ‘singularised’ - personalised or given special or sacred
meaning within a culture - in capitalist societies. Chapter 1 of Dittmar’s The Social
Psychology of Material Possessions (1992) is a lucid introduction to consumption
and material culture studies from a social psychological perspective. In addition,
consider reading small-scale empirical studies which engage with material culture
perspectives in relation to identity-based consumption in a way accessible to the
beginning reader - see Miles (1996) on youth and the use of sneakers in construc¬
tion of a symbolic universe, Lupton and Noble (2002) on the customisation of
personal computers within the workplace, and Woodward (2001, 2003) on narra¬
tives of identity construction using domestic material culture.

TWO

Studying Material Culture. Origins and Premises

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter has two main sections which:

• review the interdisciplinary origins of material culture studies

• summarise the basic premises of the material culture approach.

The nature and growth of material culture studies

This chapter introduces the most important disciplinary influences in
the formation of what is understood as the material culture perspective.
Studies of material culture have a multidisciplinary history, and their ori¬
gins can be traced to a range of theoretical literatures and research tradi¬
tions, some of which have faded in their popularity and others which are
burgeoning. The fields of research discussed are: (i) evolutionary anthro¬
pology, (ii) modern sociology and social theory, (iii) marketing and psy¬
chological approaches to consumer behaviour, (iv) consumption studies
within sociology, and (v) the new anthropologies of consumption and
economic behaviour.

Evolutionary anthropology and the exhibition of cultural difference

Early studies of material culture had a relatively narrow focus and existed
within anthropology to document and categorise the material expressions
of diverse human cultures. The first studies of material culture catalogued
and described objects, generally of non-western or, more specifically,
non-European origin. These were often objects and technologies such as

18

Locating Material Culture

spears, knives or shields. The manifest goal of these studies was to use
such artefacts as a means for retrospectively understanding human behav¬
iour and culture. However, the latent effect was to objectify, hierarchi-
calise and marginalise the cultural expressions of non-western cultures.
During the zenith period for museum collecting - the 'museum age', for¬
mally between 1880-1920 (Jacknis, 1985: 75) - such displays of material
culture performed a perverse educative role by demonstrating evolution¬
ary stages and models of cultural development, and implicitly communi¬
cating the superiority of western culture.

A novel way of ordering material culture for viewers' gaze that per¬
formed an educative role was pioneered by Franz Boas at the beginning
of the twentieth century. Termed the 'life group' arrangement, the idea
was to build a realistic, scale model which scenically represented some
aspect of social life as it was supposed to have been practised (Jacknis,
1985). Models were dressed appropriately, within particular social con¬
texts, and were typically depicted engaging in some aspect of work or art
production. A savvy cultural audience might now read with some irony
Boas' accompanying captions, which allow us to visualise the style of
these displays: 'A woman is seen making a cedar-bark mat, rocking her
infant, which is bedded in cedar-bark, the cradle being moved by means
of a cedar-bark rope attached to her toe' (Boas, cited in Jacknis, 1985: 100).

There was a strong preoccupation in these early manifestations of
material culture studies with ordering and arranging collections of the
artefacts of 'others'. Consequently, debates ensued over the principles of
organising presentations of such artefacts that centred upon either evolu¬
tionary or comparative, and geographic principles. An intriguing exam¬
ple was Pitt Rivers (a.k.a. A.H. Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers) who first became
interested in the progression of rifle and musket models as a result of his
time as a British military officer (Chapman, 1985). Rivers could be charac¬
terised as a keen, even obsessive, amateur collector who had academic
tendencies. He possessed an apparent heroic desire to provide public
instruction and articulate a type of universal material order through the
objects he assembled. Rivers' overseas military career afforded him the
perfect opportunity to amass a variety of artefacts and his burgeoning col¬
lection began to attract interest from academic ethnographers and muse¬
ums. His collection was eventually to be housed in a newly built annex of
Oxford University Museum in 1884. Rivers' interests were evolutionary
and ethnological - using material culture to 'trace all mankind back to a
single source and to reconstruct the history of human racial differentiation
and interconnection' (Chapman, 1985: 39).

Over time, the ethnological principle that informed the basis of such
collections aroused suspicion, and was increasingly interpreted as prob¬
lematic for it implicitly attached a hierarchical ordering of value to the
artefacts of other cultures. Moreover, the emptiness and isolation of objects
presented apart from their original cultural and spatial contexts was seen
as unsatisfactory. Rather than developing as a discrete discipline of

Studying Material Culture

19

inquiry, material culture became integrated into anthropological inquiry
generally, with objects used principally for evidence and illustrative pur¬
poses related to larger anthropological themes and narratives. No specific
interest in the sub-discipline of material culture studies endured. Up until
the 1960s and 1970s the field was predominantly colonised by archaeolo¬
gists who had a specific interest in the analysis of materials, and by
museum scholars and practitioners whose task it was to document and
present cultural artefacts. Readers interested in contemporary debates on
the meanings of material culture in museum contexts should consult the
numerous very useful works by Susan M. Pearce.

Sociological theories of modernity: commodities and the values of
modern society

A central theme within classical political economy, sociology and cultural
theory from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries concerns the contradic¬
tory effects of the great productive capacities of burgeoning capitalist
economies. In this body of literature capitalism is acknowledged to have an
immense capacity to produce a surfeit of consumption objects. However,
there is an underlying suspicion about what such excesses of consumer
objects could do to individuals, and society generally. Within these dis¬
courses it is not the actual objects or consumption practices of actors that
theorists are concerned with. Rather, these literatures are really discourses
on the ethics and ideologies of consumption objects, and the burgeoning
culture of materialism more broadly.

Adam Smith saw the tendency to admire and strive for the vices, follies
and fashions of the wealthy, as goals which lead to the sacrifice of wisdom
and virtue, and ultimately as 'the universal cause of the corruption of our
moral sentiments' (Smith, 1969[1759]: 84). While it is Marx who represents
the most radical manifestation of this line of thought, such sentiments also
find unique, sometimes more or less subtly cultural expressions, in a num¬
ber of other works. These include Veblen's acerbic critique of the pecuniary
nature of taste judgements (1899[1934j), Simmel (1904[1957j) on fashion and
style (1997a, 1997b) within modem contexts, Bataille (1985) on abundance
and the expenditure of 'useless splendours' that define capitalism, and
Sombart's (1967[1913j) analysis of the role of luxury goods in the genesis of
capitalism.

Later chapters will focus on these authors in more detail. However, in
introducing their ideas as part of this group of classical modern writers
concerned with material culture, we can turn to Simmel and Marx to
briefly distinguish two dominant threads in classical analyses of material
culture. First, to Karl Marx's writing on the commodity as a symbol of
estranged labour. Marx acknowledged that the wealth of capitalist
societies was based on their ability to accumulate capital through produc¬
ing an immense array of commodity objects. For Marx, one of the princi¬
pal characteristics of being human is to fashion an objective world. It is by

20

Locating Material Culture

understanding the objective world of things or objects that humans can
understand themselves: 'man reproduces himself not only intellectually,
in his consciousness, but actively and actually, and he can therefore con¬
template himself in a world he himself has created' (Marx, 1975: 329). As
the fundamental objective unit of production and consumption, the com¬
modity object symbolises both the glorious success and the exploitative
basis of capitalism. The political economy of production also entails a sig¬
nificant loss for workers. Capitalism 'produces marvels for the rich, but it
produces privation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the
worker' (Marx, 1975: 325). As later chapters of this work show, Marx had
a deep suspicion - bordering on outright hostility - toward the objects of
capitalist economic production, and saw objects of consumption as the
embodiment of exploitative capitalist relations.

Of the classical sociologists who charted early forms of modernity and
capitalism, it is Georg Simmel who had the most explicit interest in how
material culture defined the nature of modem experience. A foundational
element of Simmel's work was the insight that the modem economy
precipitated an unprecedented multiplication in the numbers of things,
objects and materials. In recognising this Simmel makes a similar obser¬
vation to Marx, yet he goes further in exploring the cultural and experi¬
ential implications of this observation. His fundamental claim is that this
ever-growing body of things becomes increasingly important in the medi¬
ation and experience of modem life. In particular, as objects multiply
in style and type they are appropriated by individuals to differentiate
themselves. Further, objects perform a tragic role by creating a distance
between the human sphere and the sphere of material things, which is
increasingly out of the grasp of people. This becomes the basis of modem
reification and alienation.

Simmel's sociological interests were diverse, to the extent that his work
was considered by some as brittle and shallow (see Frisby, 1992: 68-101).
Furthermore, he did not pursue any methodologically formal analysis of
material culture as understood by anthropologists of the day. But despite
this apparent diversity and - perhaps - superficiality, much of his work
is centrally about the dialectical, contradictory forces that propelled
modernity - the problem of individual differentiation within the context
of the peculiarly modem trajectory of uniformity and solidarity. Simmel
was interested in understanding the nature of relations between individ¬
uals, which he termed 'forms of sociation'. Crucially, objects played a sig¬
nificant part in mediating these forms of sociation. Simmel's interest in
objects can be partly understood as an element of his overarching concern
with the role of the senses on social life - particularly the sense of sight -
and with the experience of metropolitan life in the burgeoning cities of
Europe. Both of these interrelated elements privilege the role of objects in
mediating forms of sociation.

It is not just the objects of money and fashion that Simmel writes about,
he also has essays on the symbolic capacities of objects such as bridges.

Studying Material Culture

21

doors, handles, picture frames and domestic interiors. His masterly
analysis of fashion and style is essentially an attempt to understand
processes that propelled modernity, and in turn their impact on the
psycho-social development of the modern person. Fashion and style
represented much more than merely clothes, home decoration or man¬
ners; they were fundamental processes of modern social life, in fact, 'a
universal phenomenon in the history of our race' (Simmel, [1904]! 957:
53). Processes of conflict, compromise, elevation and adaption, all serve
the basic Simmelian dialectic: generality /uniformity versus individuality/
differentiation. The clarity of Simmel's understanding means that even
though his analysis of fashion and style are arguably flawed and anachro¬
nistic in some ways, much of what he says provokes interest and rings
true for present-day lay and specialist readers alike.

Marketing and psychological approaches to consumer behaviour

There are some excellent research contributions within this oeuvre that gen¬
uinely advance knowledge on matters of consumption and the nature and
meaning of human-object relations, whatever discipline or approach one
identifies with. Those with more of a cultural interest may not take
to the psychological, positivist flavour of much of this research, in its attempt
to develop clear measures and means for studying people-object relations.
However, this research approach has some advantages over other styles.
Take work by Belk (1985, 1988, 1995; Belk et al., 1989), Wallendorf
(Walendorf and Amould, 1988) and Kleine and Keman (1991) (also Kleine
et al., 1995) in the field of marketing and consumer research, and
Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) and Schultz et al. (1989)
within the field of psychology, as examples of such universally excellent
research. These are, however, high profile and exceptional exemplars. A sig¬
nificant amount of research in this field is indeed unsatisfying from a cul¬
tural perspective, leaving the work of major research figures within the
fields of sociology of consumption and cultural anthropology, particularly
European and British scholars, unconsidered. By focusing predominantly on
the psychological elements of human-object relations this work precludes
understanding consumption and materialism as cultural practices and val¬
ues that generate social inequality and difference. Yet, these types of studies
do succeed in an important way, for while sociologists and social theorists
have persistently referred to the salience of identity management in contem¬
porary consumption processes without attention to empirical settings and
processes, these studies have fostered advances by empirically exploring the
way self-identities are generated by processes of attachment to, integration
of, and individuation, based on relations with material culture (e.g. Schultz
et al., 1989). Their high level of conceptual clarification and specification, and
attention to empirical detail, gives such psychological studies advantages.

For example, in a unique study Wallendorf and Amould (1988) use a
triangulated methodology with samples of respondents from USA and

22

Locating Material Culture

Niger to explore the notion of favourite objects. Their theoretical premise
is that objects serve a fundamental psychological function by provid¬
ing a material site for attachment of meaning. Following Douglas and
Isherwood ([1996]1979), they assert that rather than being about material¬
ism, acquisition is about meaning making and intelligibility of one's cul¬
tural universe. Their key findings are as follows: the US sample is more
instrumental and materialistic in their focus on possessions as a key goal
of consumption; females select biographical and family-based items while
males select objects to reflect mastery and accomplishment; and young
people's consumption is pleasure-based compared to older respondents
who emphasise intergenerational bonds.

Much of this genre of research is associated with marketing, business
and consumer research studies, most strongly developed in North America,
whose main aim is to apply scientific research techniques in order to
understand consumer behaviour. The ultimate goal is to market and sell
products more effectively. The end result of such research is not necessarily
to understand patterns of consumption or materialism (let alone to chal¬
lenge them as core cultural values), but to actually advance materialist
values by generating more accurate, and ultimately strategic, understand¬
ings of consumer behaviour. As Rose points out concerning the govern¬
ment of consumption: 'It is the expertise of market research, of
promotion and communication, underpinned by the knowledges and
techniques of subjectivity, that provide the relays through which the aspi¬
rations of ministers, the ambitions of business and the dreams of
consumers achieve mutual translatability' (Rose, 1992: 155). What is inter¬
esting about this research is that it seems to thrive in North America,
where consumerist and materialist values reign, and suggests an associa¬
tion between thriving marketing faculties and materialist societies. This
speculation aside, through careful selection, scholars of material culture
could make profitable use of such literatures - paying limited attention to
those which are most strongly empirically abstracted and acultural, but
engaging with those which make genuine connections between consumer
psychology and cultural narrative and forms.

Consumption studies within sociology

Attention to objects as rudimentary elements of consumer culture has
acquired renewed status in socio-cultural accounts of consumption
processes in late-modern societies. While sociologists and political econo¬
mists have historically had an enduring concern for the material con¬
stituents of culture and consumption broadly (Goffman, 1951; Marx,
(1954[1867j); Simmel, 1904[1957]; Sombart, 1967[1913]; Veblen, 1899[1934]),
the recent interest in the material objects of consumption has developed in
the context of prominent socio-cultural accounts of contemporary con¬
sumerism and, in turn, the emphasis these have given to the material basis
of consumption processes (Appadurai, 1986; Douglas and Isherwood,

Studying Material Culture

23

[1996] 1979; Miller, 1987; Riggins, 1994). Moreover, the optimism generated
by the emergent material culture perspective within sociological studies of
consumption seems in part a reaction to the excesses of prominent cele¬
bratory accounts of postmodern consumption. Such accounts embraced
the expressive, astructural and aesthetic possibilities of particular types of
consumption, and associated them theoretically with identity-mainte¬
nance, choice and freedom, and reflexivity. Emerging from some of the
key texts in European and British social theory and cultural studies pub¬
lished from the 1970s onward, these accounts located consumption at the
core of contemporary processes of social change and introduced a variety
of concepts which were theoretically rich and novel. However, it could be
argued that they were also generally without systematic empirical war¬
rant or methodological sophistication, and have latterly been seen to
place too much emphasis on the expressive and identity aspects of con¬
sumption. They were successful in narrating the apparent tempo of the
era and sketching macro scale social changes, but often inadequate in
specifying, measuring and empirically tempering the claims they
established.

The gist of the postmodern claim is that consumption has been aestheti-
cised and semioticised by recent processes of h v pe r-co m modification
(Featherstone, 1991; Jameson, 1991 [1984]; Lash and Urry, 1994). The con¬
trast made commonplace in commentary on consumption processes is
that if consumption could ever be characterised in historical perspective
as typically utilitarian - that is, being essentially a question of utility in
use - then by contrast it is now characteristically constructive: identity¬
forming, reflexive, expressive and even playful.

Featherstone's account of the contours of contemporary consumer
culture is principally indebted to the theoretical work established by
Jameson (1991[1984J), Lash and Urry (1987) and Harvey (1989) and the
semiotic analyses of Baudrillard ([1996]1968) and Barthes, (1967,
1993[1957]), who established new ground by the application of semiotic
techniques to everyday consumer culture. Featherstone's analysis of the
move to a postmodern consumer culture finds the concept of lifestyle to
have particular salience in a postmodern regime of consumption. Of
the three approaches to consumer culture Featherstone (1990) outlines, he
chooses to emphasise the role of pleasure and desire in framing recent
consumption practices. The development of a postmodern consumer cul¬
ture rests on an assumption about the use of goods as communicators, not
just utilities. Featherstone sees this trend as a component of what he
has labelled 'the aestheticization of everyday life' (1992), for in a society
where the commodity sign dominates, by default each person must be a
symbolic specialist.

There are two relevant applications of Featherstone's (1991) discussion
of aestheticisation which are applicable to consumer culture, or at least
some social fractions of it. The first is where life is conceptualised as a
project of style, where originality, taste and aesthetic competence are

24

Locating Material Culture

measures of success and superiority (1991: 67), and thus become important
motivators for social action. This is a style project that is not merely accom¬
plished by the outlay of sheer sums of disposable income. While
Featherstone assigns the avant-garde and intellectuals an important role in
the dissemination of new consumption ideas - and he also endorses
Bourdieu's (1984) emphasis on the new middle classes as the fiscal back¬
bone of the consumer economy - all classes are held to approach the project
of lifestyle with an outlook Featherstone labels 'calculating hedonism, a cal¬
culus of stylistic effect and an emotional economy' (1991: 86). The notion of
lifestyle is particularly useful for Featherstone's formulation of consumer
culture, because it suggests how people act as postmodern symbol proces¬
sors through the coherent and meaningful deployment of symbols that
exist within 'economies' of commodity objects:

Rather than unreflexively adopting a lifestyle, through tradition or habit, the
new heroes of consumer culture make lifestyle a life project and display their
individuality and sense of style in the particularity of the assemblage of goods,
clothes, practices, experiences, appearance and bodily dispositions they
design together into a lifestyle. The modern individual within consumer culture
is made conscious that he speaks not only with his clothes, but with his home,
furnishings, decoration, car and other activities which are to be read in terms
of the presence and absence of taste. (Featherstone, 1991 : 86)

The cultural and postmodern turn in consumption studies rests substan¬
tially on a scepticism concerning the totalising claims of the critical or neo-
Marxist approach to consumption which has stressed the manipulative,
ideological nature of consumer capitalism (for example, Florkheimer and
Adorno, 1987[1944]; Marcuse, 1976 [1964]). The logic behind this flight from
critical versions of consumption theory is built in part on the substantial
body of literature that has recently emerged concerning social and eco¬
nomic processes of spatialisation and semioticisation associated with what
have been labelled 'late' (Jameson, 1991) forms of capitalism (see also Beck,
1992; Harvey, 1989; Lash and Urry, 1987, 1994). The groundwork of this
approach rests on the identification of a variety of fundamental transforma¬
tions in the circulation of global capital, and an array of associated cultural
changes (tellingly understood as a mere 'dependent variable'), which gener¬
ally include shifts in the way consumer objects are produced and consumed.
A principal claim advanced in this literature is that the nature of consump¬
tion has changed as capitalism spatialises and semioticises in unique ways
at an accelerated pace; and as a corollary, consumption is commonly theo¬
rised as an important sphere for reflexively monitoring self -trajectories and
for generating a social identity. As part of their theorisation of flexible flows
of capital and signs. Lash and Urry exemplify this view in their description
of the consumption component of these regimes of reflexive accumulation:

What is more important is the process of Enttraditionalisierung , of the decline
of tradition which opens up a process of individualization in which structures

Studying Material Culture

25

such as the family, corporate groups and even social class location, no longer
determine consumption decisions for individuals. Whole areas of lifestyle and
consumer choice are freed up and individuals are forced to decide, to take
risks, to bear responsibilities, to be actively involved in the construction of
their own identities for themselves, to be enterprising consumers. (Lash and
Urry, 1994: 61)

The new anthropologies of consumption and economic behaviour

It is from within the discipline of anthropology that some of the most
influential recent works on the cultural aspects of consumption have
emerged. These new approaches are distinguished by the application of
anthropological concepts and methodologies to contemporary consump¬
tion settings and practices, such as shopping, fashion and home decora¬
tion. While there are strong and influential bodies of related work within
sociology. North American consumer research, anthropology, psychology
and sociology which deal with objects have already been highlighted
(and), contemporary manifestations of material culture studies have prin¬
cipally been drawn around the work of Daniel Miller. Miller's status as a
virtual one-person industry in material culture studies is based mainly on
the groundbreaking achievements of his work Material Culture and Mass
Consumption (1987) and the large volume of work published since then. Its
principal accomplishment was to show how material culture studies
could be profitably applied to studies of contemporary consumption,
using concepts from across the disciplines of anthropology, philosophy
and sociology. Though in this work Miller deals primarily with the
abstract and philosophical dimensions of objects as material culture,
throughout it he retains an interest in modern life and its fundamental
processes as they were understood in classical social theory: individuali¬
sation, materialism, alienation and objectification. In prefacing this work
Miller suggested that the re-emergence of the field of material culture
studies may give hitherto unconnected threads in an otherwise homeless
and residual field of inquiry 'a new integrity as a basis for tackling topics
such as mass consumption' (1987: vii). Judged against this goal, the suc¬
cess of Material Culture and Mass Consumption is undisputed, as this aspi¬
ration has been substantially realised. In 1996, Miller and Tilley became
the founding editors of the journal of Material Culture, whose broad con¬
cern they defined as interdisciplinary research dealing with 'the ways in
which artefacts are implicated in the construction, maintenance and trans¬
formation of social identities' (Miller and Tilley, 1996: 5).

The other significant accomplishment of Material Culture and Mass
Consumption was to provide a new analytic focal point for studies of con¬
sumption and to actually name the framework of 'material culture' as a
field for common inquiry Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood
([1996]1979) may have managed the same some years earlier had they
used something other than the term 'goods' to proclaim their interest in

26

Locating Material Culture

anthropological accounts of contemporary consumption. This disciplinary
defining aspect of Miller's success must be understood within the evolu¬
tion of the field of consumption studies. Consumption studies within soci¬
ology and cultural studies flourished in the 1980s via emerging accounts of
postmodernity and its basis in expressive, consumption-based reflexivities
and identities. But in the 1990s fresh empirical accounts and re-evaluations
by leading scholars surfaced that questioned some of the extravagant and
unfounded claims in the literature. These criticisms were based particu¬
larly around the focus on particular forms of consumption as the founda¬
tion for generalising postmodern accounts. In contrast, by emphasising the
transformative capacities people possess when they deal with objects, the
material culture approach had the advantage of encouraging a grounded,
empirical focus that addresses mutual relations between people and con¬
sumer objects.

Material culture studies may once have had a coherent basis within
the discipline of anthropology, as a strand of evolutionary anthropology.
However contemporary studies of material culture have developed a
strongly interdisciplinary nature. Various disciplines have as their con¬
cern aspects of material culture: art history, design and fashion studies,
architecture and landscape design, consumer research and marketing
studies. All of these disciplines deal with aspects of material culture as
their principal empirical focus. However, with the exception of con¬
sumer research and marketing studies, they are not centrally connected
to the current scholarship associated with the growth of material culture
studies, nor would they necessarily identify themselves as practising
material culture studies. Likewise, there are various sub-disciplinary
concerns within sociology that commonly deal with material culture as
part of their inquiry, for example, studies of the body and body modifi¬
cation, urban and spatial studies, and technology studies. Few scholars
within this field would be likely to explicitly identify themselves as
doing material culture studies, though within the field of technology
studies Michael (2000: 3) is one who has explicitly identified studies of
mundane technologies and their role in mediating everyday life as part
of material culture studies. Despite the tendency to celebrate the inclu¬
siveness of an interdisciplinary approach, there is some danger in
including all and sundry accounts of material objects within the field of
material culture studies, simply because they study objects or artefacts
in some way.

Basic premises of the material culture approach

Having surveyed various disciplinary bases and origins of theory and
research into material culture, the next section generalises about the com¬
mon assumptions of these diverse approaches. Such principles are not nec¬
essarily directly manifest in each of the individual approaches previously

Studying Material Culture

27

discussed, nor are they an attempt to constitute a type of mantra on how to
practise legitimate material culture studies. Rather, the following principles
provide the rationale and foundational assumptions that underpin these
diverse approaches to accounting for objects.

Interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary inquiry

The first characteristic that defines the contemporary field of material cul¬
ture studies is its interdisciplinary approach and cross-disciplinary focus.
Interdisciplinarity refers to studies of material culture that make use of
multiple disciplines - for example, sociology, history, anthropology and
psychology - as complementary elements of their explanation. In this
interdisciplinary model, no discipline is given authority over explana¬
tions of material culture as each is seen to enhance the insights of the
other. This is important because no object has a single interpretation -
objects are always polysemous and capable of transformations of meaning
across time and space contexts. For example, in his important examina¬
tion of the process of commoditisation of objects, Kopytoff (1986) inter¬
twines history, philosophy, anthropology and sociology to show how
objects undergo changes in status and meaning over time, and across cul¬
tural spaces. Furthermore, there is an inherent diversity of analytic
methodologies deployed within material culture studies, broadly ranging
from formal structuralism and semiotic interpretations, to ethnography,
interviewing and observational studies.

The idea of cross-disciplinarity is quite different. The cross-disciplinary
nature of material culture studies means that discrete studies of material
culture are undertaken across multiple disciplines, but do not necessarily
make use of interdisciplinary approaches. For example, the North
American tradition of consumer research and business studies is gener¬
ally, though not exclusively, associated with psychological, positivist
approaches to studying human-object relations (the work of Belk and
Wallendorf are prominent exceptions to this generalisation). The restric¬
tive and exclusive focus of this style of research means that one generally
does not find reference to important sociological or anthropological tradi¬
tions within it, even to those one might consider being amongst the most
important and influential - including Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Mauss or
Simmel. Yet, on the other hand, many important questions are addressed
within this broadly positivist oeuvre using well-conceptualised, novel
empirical approaches that build upon accumulated research findings
from within the restricted field. To date, both approaches have tended
to largely ignore each other's work. It is also accurate to say that the
discipline-bounded focus of much psychological research into material
culture has been generally overlooked by sociologists and anthropolo¬
gists, save a few prominent exceptions such as Csikszentmihalyi and
Rochberg-Halton (1981) and the work of Belk on collectorship (1995) and
materialism (1985, 1995).

28

Locating Material Culture

Objects matter

The fundamental conviction of material culture studies is that objects do
matter for culture and society, and that social analysis should take account
of objects in theorising culture and how it works. Even though the tradi¬
tion of studying elements of material culture is relatively long, like theo¬
rists who have argued that social theory has too long ignored space,
emotions, or the body, theorists of material culture are attempting to
're-materialise' social theory through an attunement to people-object rela¬
tions. This is precisely the agenda that underlies Daniel Miller's case for
studying material culture. He notes the contradiction that 'academic
study of the specific nature of the material artefact produced in society
has been remarkably neglected ... This lack of concern with the nature of
the artefact appears to have emerged simultaneously with the quantita¬
tive rise in the production and mass distribution of material goods'
(Miller, 1987: 3). But why are objects held to matter? The answer is not just
because they are more plentiful or ubiquitous, but because they are
involved in social representation or symbolisation, and are recognised as
containing important meanings for social action. Thus, as semiotic stud¬
ies of objects illustrate, objects represent or symbolise some aspect of
culture, and have cultural resonance because they are recognised by
members of a society or social group. So, objects represent and are recog¬
nised within society.

Not only do we constantly engage with objects in a direct, material
way we also live in a world where objects are represented as images and
have global mobility. This means that understanding the 'social lives'
(Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986) of objects is one of the keys to under¬
standing culture. In his efforts to develop an alternative political economy
that understands the processes which underpin people-object relations,
Baudrillard (1981, 1996[1968]) writes persuasively in favour of a social
theory that takes account of objects, which up until now had 'only a walk-
on role in sociological research' (1981: 31). Baudrillard expresses a desire
to see objects in terms of their general structure of social behaviour, and
'as the scaffolding for a global structure of the environment' (1981: 36).
More recently. Miller (1998b) has asserted that, in the first instance, things
or objects - rather than people alone - do matter in studies of culture. By
focusing on objects in a way that is inclusive of the subjects who use them
and of their motives and meanings, such approaches avoid fetishisation
of material culture. In showing how objects matter, Harre (2002) suggests
that all objects belong to material and expressive orders. The former
relates to their practical utility, and the latter component to their role in
helping to create social hierarchies of honour and status. He usefully
reminds the reader that social life can be seen to be made up of a series of
symbolic exchanges which construct and manage meanings (ie. 'culture'),
and that such exchanges cannot be accomplished without the help of
material things. What's more, this means that the narrative - storylines.

Studying Material Culture

29

talk, conversation and interaction - and the material orders cannot be
separated, for to 'become relevant to human life material beings must be
interpreted for them to play a part in human narrative' (Harre, 2002: 32).

A concern with the cultural efficacy of objects has enduring salience
within sociology and anthropology, and includes some of the founda¬
tional statements within each discipline by, for example, Marx, Durkheim,
Simmel, Malinowski, Mauss and Veblen. While these texts are not always,
and not principally, concerned with objects or material culture directly as
are today's studies, objects do play an important role in these canonical
analyses of society and culture. What distinguishes these classical, mod¬
ern studies of society from current material culture studies is that current
studies have a direct interest in people-object relations as the prime
motive and aim of their analytical work. For example, Marx spoke of
objects within his larger theory of capitalist development, Durkheim of
objects as representations of fundamental classes of things as either sacred
or profane, and Veblen of the ability of objects to show off luxury and
beauty. In current studies of material culture the object-person relation is
the direct focus of inquiry, and taken to be a matter of interest in its own
right. This means there is a greater potential for material culture to be
theorised and conceptualised in more sophisticated ways, made central to
the theoretical narratives and arguments of researchers, and become more
pivotally imbricated in the articulation of social actions and outcomes.

Objects have social lives

One of the basic insights of recent conceptualisations of material culture
studies has been the idea that objects have 'social lives' (Appadurai, 1986)
or 'biographies' (Kopytoff, 1986). Essentially, this means that in modern
societies, where meanings and interpretations attached to images are rel¬
atively flexible and fluid, objects have careers or trajectories whereby their
meaning for consumers changes over time and space. As Kopytoff (1986)
points out, this may involve objects shifting in and out of commodity sta¬
tus. That is, at some stage of their lives, objects are primarily defined
by their relation to a monetary or exchange value which defines them as
'commodities', while at other times, generally some time after an eco¬
nomic exchange has taken place, they become 'de-commodified' as they
are incorporated - or 'subjectified' (Miller, 1987) and 'singularised'
(Kopytoff, 1986) - by people according to personal meanings, relation¬
ships or rituals. For example, Corrigan (1997) uses the example of a pet,
such as a cat, to illustrate this distinction. When the cat is encaged in a pet
store it is primarily a commodity, yet when its future owner exchanges
cash for it and brings it home, its commodity status dissipates and the pet
is primarily defined by its relations to its new owners and 'family'.
Kopytoff (1986) also gives the case of art to explain this process. An iconic
piece of modem art is principally defined by its commodity status when
it enters the market for sale, for example when it is displayed in an

30

Locating Material Culture

auctioneer's room in preparation for sale. Yet, once purchased, it re-enters
the sphere of 'art' once more, and is presumably put on display as a
symbol of beauty, status or the good aesthetic taste of its new owner.

The trajectories and biographies of objects are not just related to their
commodity status, but to more complex meanings and interpretations
given to them by individuals, restricted taste communities (such as those
who appreciate avant-garde, or fans of a particular pop group or televi¬
sion show) and larger social groups (such as social classes, or 'tribes', see
Maffessoli, 1996). The underlying assumption of this argument is that in
complex, differentiated, pluralistic societies inhabited by omnivorous,
knowledgeable and flexible consumers, the rules or criteria for discrimi¬
nating and classifying the worth of material culture are diffuse and
variable. As Kopytoff states (1986: 78-9):

...the public culture offers discriminating classifications here no less than it
does in small scale societies. But these must constantly compete with classi¬
fications by individuals and by small networks, whose members also belong
to other networks expounding yet other value systems. The discriminating cri¬
teria that each individual or network can bring to the task of classification are
extremely varied. Not only is every individual’s or network’s version of
exchange spheres idiosyncratic and different from those of others, but it also
shifts contextually and biographically as the originators perspectives, affilia¬
tions and interests shift. The result is a debate not only between people and
groups, but within each person as well.

Hebdige's (1988) essay on the networks of production and consumption
meanings and discourses which construct the life of the Italian scooter
is a seminal illustration of how commodities have such trajectories. The
'scooter' is, of course, a small wheeled, low-capacity cycle with a flat, open
platform and engine mounted over the rear wheel. The first scooters were
the 'Vespa', manufactured by Piaggio in 1946, and the 'Lambretta', pro¬
duced by Innocenti in 1947. The scooters were originally targeted to conti¬
nental women, and youths in general, who were the new, emergent
consumers of the era. The scooters offered mobility and freedom, and were
marketed as an object that carried possible emancipatory effects for young
women. In 1950s Britain, the scooter acquired a strong association with
'Italianness' and continental style and sophistication, which for design and
aesthetics conscious British consumers symbolised 'everything that was
chic and modem' (Hebdige, 1988: 106). In the late 1950s and 1960s the
scooter was appropriated by Mod youth as an identity marker which fitted
their sartorial and musical preferences and aspirations. Customisation and
accessorisation of the scooter followed, as did the establishment of rules for
scooter wear, and an associated 'correct' way of riding.

Turning to more recent phases in the biography of the scooter, what can
be noted is that scooters remain associated with youth, and particularly
inner-city consumers due to their economy, size and mobility. Readers

Studying Material Culture

31

may be familiar with the image of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver scooting in
and out of East London laneways on his way to find the 'freshest seafood',
'most pungent herbs' and 'matured cheeses'. Once again, the scooter is a
lifestyle accessory, appropriated to suit the gentrified, inner-city market.
Just as Hebdige has written the biography of the scooter, so other pop cul¬
ture objects spring to mind as having their own careers: the Doc Marten
boot which was once skinhead wear, became a mass youth brand some¬
where in the 1980s or early 1990s, and is now being challenged by the
'sneaker' market; the 'Ben Sherman' and 'Fred Perry' shirts, again associ¬
ated with skinhead and mod sub-cultures in Britain, then latterly inner-
city, 'cool' consumers, and now are emerging as mass brands whose
mainstream success have the potential to alienate their loyal base of orig¬
inal consumers. In these cases, the objects become saturated with mean¬
ing for particular sub-cultural groups, or 'tribes' (Maffesoli, 1996), and as
they circulate amongst and throughout these cultures - often as a result of
fashions - they are seen to have a trajectory or 'social life'.

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Slater’s Consumer Culture and Modernity (1997) is an authoritative contextual isa-
tion of consumption cultures within social theory. See especially Chapters 5 and 6
of this work which look at the meaning and uses of things. The Editorial essay by
Miller and Tilley (1996) which introduces the first edition of the Journal of Material
Culture modestly develops a manifesto for contemporary studies of material cul¬
ture, drawing together various strands and traditions of intellectual engagement
with objects. Hebdige’s (1988) essay on the trajectory of the Italian scooter (described
above) within popular culture makes interesting reading and deftly illustrates the
way commodities have cultural trajectories. I would also recommend consulting
the first few chapters from Baudrillard’s For a Critique of the Political Economy of
the Sign (1981). Though it may sometimes be difficult to grasp the historical and
intellectual context of Baudrillard’s writing (given his engagement with intellectual
traditions including structuralism, Marxism and semiotics), this is an ambitious,
unique and readable work that takes up the case for studying objects as part of
social life. For a design perspective on material culture, see works by Attfield
(2000) and Heskett (2002). For a social psychological perspective on people-
object relations, consult the works by Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton
(1981) and Lunt and Livingstone (1992).

PART II

THEORETICAL APPROACHES
TO STUDYING MATERIAL
CULTURE

THREE

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object.
Marxist and Critical Approaches

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter reviews the work of key authors who adopt a critical
approach to theorising material culture. It has four main sections:

• Marx and the theorisation of objects as commodities

• Lukacs on the links between commodification and reification

• The Frankfurt School authors, including Florkheimer and Adorno,
Marcuse and Fromm who link commodity culture to social
psychopathology

• popular criticism of commodity culture in liberal economics and
new social movements.

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production pre¬
vails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities’, its unit
being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the
analysis of a commodity. (Marx, Capital, 1 954[1 867]: 43)

Marx: the commodity object as congealed labour

In the introduction to Capital Marx makes the point that the commodity -
which we could understand as a technical category of 'material culture' -
must be the starting point for an analysis of society. Reading this tract, one
is likely to deduce that, at least at one level, Marx was centrally interested
in questions of material culture and objects. Indeed, a survey of either of
Marx's key works - Capital or Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts - will
give one the impression that objects are the fundamental unit in his analysis
of capitalist society. Moreover, one would understand from Marx that being
able to grasp the 'true' nature of objects is crucial to comprehending the

36

Theoretical Approaches

totality of human existence. Such an inference would be correct, but only
in so far as these objects were to be understood as 'commodities'. By com¬
modity, Marx was referring to material culture that is defined by a specific
relation generated within a system of monetary exchange and produced
in capitalist social relations.

Despite such exhortations to study material culture in the form of the
commodity, one could not assert that Marx was interested in material cul¬
ture per se. That is, he is not interested in the nature of objects as material
elements of culture, the relations between people and objects, and the
cultural uses of objects. Objects are important for Marx because they are
the unit representations of fundamental processes of capitalist society: alien¬
ation, exploitation and estrangement. So, even though in Capital Marx devel¬
ops a formidable model of the materialist, class basis of capitalist society that
begins with the commodity as its fundamental unit for analytic focus, he
does so in a way that completely obliterates the possibility for an interpre¬
tive or cultural account of the meaning of objects. The intellectual legacy of
Marxist accounts of the commodity has been to focus on the relations and
means of production, at the expense of consumption. And, when consump¬
tion was studied, the scholarly accounts developed were generally reductive
and deterministic. Such studies tended to view consumption practice and
the commodity culture upon which it is based with scepticism and disdain,
seeing it as evidence of ideological manipulation, the generation of false con¬
sciousness, and as degrading to authentic human values.

The following section examines more closely the role of the commodity
within Marx's account of capitalism. Objects perform two principal func¬
tions in Marx's analysis of capitalism. First, because they are products
of human labour organised within capitalism, they embody exploitative
capitalist labour relations. Furthermore, objects engender a false con¬
sciousness within exploited social classes who focus on the lure of com¬
modity jewels, and in doing so overlook their exploited status within the
capitalist system. The closest Marx gets to an anthropological or deeply
'cultural' understanding of material culture is his admission that people
learn about themselves and broader humanity by contemplating the
objective world they have created. The highest form of this learning
would be to develop a consciousness of their alienation and how material
culture, as commodity, embodies such alienation.

Marx's materialist methodology leads him to conclude that what mat¬
ters is not merely the intellectual world, but the objective or material
world. Further, he urges people to realise that they are the creators of such
an objective world - including the everyday objects of consumption they
engage with - rather than taking it for granted or assuming they hold no
individual responsibility for it:

It is therefore in his fashioning of the objective that man really proves himself ...
for man reproduces himself not only intellectually, in his consciousness, but
actively and actually, and he can therefore contemplate himself in a world he
himself has created. (Marx, 1975: 329)

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

37

The integral unit of Marx's analysis of the objective world is the commodity
form. To understand capitalism, one must understand the commodity By
commodity, Marx had quite a special meaning in mind. One could not sim¬
ply substitute 'object', 'thing' or 'material culture' to capture Marx's mean¬
ing, as is popular in current discussions about objects. In the first case Marx
uses the term commodity to refer to objects that are assigned a monetary
value and are exchangeable. Additionally, Marx seems to imagine the com¬
modity as being a material container or expression of the history of capital¬
ist relations - the exploitation, alienation and oppression of the working
class is implicit in its material form. He points out in the introductory sec¬
tions of Capital that in the first instance commodities must satisfy human
wants, however, 'the nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring
from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here
concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants' (1975: 43). In other
words, he makes clear his treatise is not about economic, cultural or philo¬
sophical questions of satisfaction, utility or value - the type of questions a
treatise on modem consumption would be expected to develop. Rather, it is
with the commodity as an object of ideological obfuscation or trickery. For
this reason Marx's account of the commodity can never really be the basis
for an adequate theory of material culture for he is not concerned with a sub¬
jective interpretation of the commodity, the cultural work objects afford, or
the reasons why and how people give it value and consume it.

Marx develops his theory of the commodity by arguing that the object
of consumption within capitalism is not as it seems. At first glance, the
commodity may appear 'a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its
analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in meta¬
physical subtleties and theological niceties' (Marx, 1954[1867]: 76). The
queerness of the object is that it is a material embodiment of exploited
human labour. Once one understands this historical fact, according to
Marxist doctrine, one is likely never to see consumption objects in the
same light. For Marx, the link between the object of consumption and its
origin within capitalist labour relations was clear:

commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values, articles, or
goods, such as iron, linen, corn etc. This is their plain, homely, bodily form ...
(however) they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or
embodiments of one identical social substance, human labour. (Marx,
1954(1867]: 76)

The case of sports shoes and fashion clothing is apt here. Critics point out
that if western consumers realised many of the expensive brands they
wear are produced at very cheap rates by lowly paid labour in third world
countries, or sweatshops within their own country, they may be con¬
vinced to change their consumption habits. Especially within the sports
fashion market dominated by iconic global brands, such changes seem
some way off, despite the existence of a developing critical awareness
fostered by popular works like Naomi Klein's No Logo.

38

Theoretical Approaches

Looking further into the detail of Marx's analysis, we can see that it is by
distinguishing between use-value and exchange-value that Marx has the
technical-theoretical means for expressing his deep mistrust of the objects
of capitalist economic production. Marx theorised that material objects
have a range of palpable use values - to feed, clothe, entertain or give sat¬
isfaction and pleasure. However, objects of consumption also embodied a
specific set of exploitative social relations. In fact, they are quantities of
'congealed labour time' (Marx, 1954[1867]: 30) which are material crystalli¬
sations of the sweat, blood and energy of workers. The product of labour¬
ing is a double-edged alienation - from one's own labour activity which
Marx saw as a tragic activity ultimately directed against itself, from other
workers, and from the product of one's labour, which was the objective
world of consumption objects. The more the worker produces, the more he
is alienated from the objects of his production. This means that the objects
workers produce shall ultimately confront them as something hostile and
alienating, symbolising their estrangement (Marx, 1975: 326). In develop¬
ing such a powerful theory of alienation and exploitation, Marx laid down
perhaps the most influential framework for understanding commodity
objects. His analysis intersected in minor ways with some of the concerns
expressed by earlier moral philosophers such as Adam Smith, and served
as the groundwork and inspiration for later lines of commodity criticism
in works by Lukacs, Horkheimer and Adorno, Fromm and Marcuse, and
in an indirect way through the writings of foundational postmodernists
such as Jameson (1991[1984j). It is to the twentieth century descendants of
the Marxian view on material culture as commodity that the remainder of
this chapter turns.

Lukacs, reification and the commodity form

Writing in the tradition of Marx over the first three decades of the twentieth
century, Lukacs' work can be seen as a response to the failure of Marx's
materialist account to explain the continued advancement and colonisa¬
tion of capitalism. The problem, for Lukacs, was to explain why it was
that the exploited classes did not rise up in revolt to liberate themselves,
as predicted by Marx's scientific, materialist dissection of the laws of cap¬
italism. Lukacs' explanatory solution was to begin looking toward the
realm of culture and non-economic dimensions of social life for blockages
to capitalism's downfall. He concluded that culture - defined in this tra¬
dition as the values held by citizens that were identified as an impediment
to radical social and economic change - existed as a form of ideology. Like
Marx, Lukacs' analysis begins with the commodity form. However, in
contrast to Marx who focused on processes of labour exploitation and the
expropriation of value from workers and its embodiment in the commod¬
ity, the body of Lukacs' explanation centred on the processes of commod¬
ification and reification which were identified as entrenched cultural

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

39

impediments to radical social change. He also identified that society-wide
rationalisation processes ushered in changing forms of consciousness
which encouraged exploited classes to take current social arrangements
for granted.

Lukacs begins the essay 'Reification and the consciousness of the prole¬
tariat' from his best known work History and Class Consciousness (which
compiles political essays written between the years 1918 and 1930) at the
same point Marx begins Capital - with an assertion of the universality of
the commodity form and an entreaty to understand the commodity as the
basic component of capitalist social relations. Like Marx, Lukacs saw the
bedrock of capitalism as the commodity form. In holding a commodity in
one's hands, wearing a commodity on one's feet or one's back, purchas¬
ing or producing a commodity, one held the nucleus of capitalism and the
key to understanding the exploitative and despairing nature of contem¬
porary society (that is, if only one could realise it). The commodity is the
holy grail of such Marxist accounts. Lukacs pronounces that 'there is no
problem that does not ultimately lead back to an analysis of commodities'
and that the secret to understanding capitalist society is to be 'found in
the solution to the riddle of the com mod i ty-structure' (Lukacs, 1971: 83).

In Lukacs' vision, the commodity object is also magically deceptive.
In people's everyday subjective contemplation and use, the object seems
rational and transparent enough. However, in reality it has acquired a
'phantom objectivity' which serves to hide its true nature from those
unaware or ignorant (1971: 83). So, par for the course in this genre, we see
that Lukacs believes that to see behind the commodity is to understand
capitalism. Furthermore, by implication, to consume goods and services
without regard for the structural conditions of their production (that
is, relations of capitalist production) is to overlook a basic fact of social
existence - commodity objects embody a set of exploitative relations con¬
necting people within capitalism: the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of
production) and proletariat (those who only have their labour to sell to
the bourgeois capitalists).

The object thus performs an ideological function. By posing deceptively
as a prop on the stage where social activity is enacted, its everyday or 'use
value' masks a menacing ideological content. The result is that the rela¬
tions of production which combined to produce the thing go unobserved
to the social actor, and the social structure is ultimately unchallenged - the
basis for Lukacs' master process of reification:

The commodity becomes crucial for the subjugation of men’s consciousness

and for their attempts to comprehend the process or to rebel against its dis¬
astrous effects and liberate themselves. (Lukacs, 1971: 86)

Lukacs ventures a bleak vision, for in the end, people cannot exist with¬
out commodification touching their existence. Moreover, they have no
way of living without the increasing penetration of reifying processes into

40

Theoretical Approaches

their psyche. To disrupt and overcome reification would involve 'constant
and constantly renewing' revolutionary efforts. This was unlikely how¬
ever, since such radical sentiments were bound to be extinguished by the
growth of status-consciousness which was an increasingly prominent feature
of modern society at the expense of a revolutionary class-consciousness.
One might suggest that shopping - as symbolic of the pleasures of com¬
modity culture broadly - won out over revolutionary values.

The Frankfurt School and commodity culture

The Frankfurt School is the name given to a group of scholars working in
an updated Marxist tradition often characterised as 'critical theory' (here¬
after referred to as CT). The label 'Frankfurt School' could be considered
a misnomer as the writers included beneath such a banner may not nec¬
essarily be considered a cohesive 'school' or tradition of scholarship and
were not only based in Frankfurt. The most well known central figures of
the Frankfurt School were Max Horkheimer, Flerbert Marcuse, Theodor
Adorno and Erich Fromm. There are two key focal points for the develop¬
ment of the Frankfurt or critical tradition: the first was the body of work
emerging from the Frankfurt School of Social Research established in
1923, and second. Max Horkheimer 's influential manifesto 'Traditional
and Critical Theory', published in 1937, Horkheimer (1982).

Kellner (1989a: 2) identifies the development of CT as associated with
crises of both capitalism and Marxism. The crisis of capitalism is associ¬
ated with the doomed modern goal of building a rational society based
on technological, scientific and economic advancement. The crisis of
Marxism is associated with the failure of Marxist theory to foster the con¬
crete existence of socialist republics, given that its central premises were
based upon such an event. Further, it became recognised that the scientis¬
tic basis of orthodox Marxism was conceptually rigid and altogether too
heavily based upon Enlightenment-style premises. CT was established on
a programme of interdisciplinary, Marxist-oriented social research. At its
philosophical core was a belief that traditional social science approaches
treated human beings as mere objects within mechanical schemes of
understanding. Furthermore, the consequence of traditional social science
approaches was to operate as if social scientific facts could be separated
from social values. CT could be seen as a re-appraised form of Marxist
theory - members of the Frankfurt Institute remained committed to work¬
ing in the Marxian tradition and identified with much of its analytic
premises and approaches, but went beyond much of its anachronistic
classical vocabulary and conceptual core (Kellner, 1989a: 12). A primary
assertion of CT was that contemporary Marxism was best served by the
development of an interdisciplinary research programme that gave
importance not only to the economic bases of social organisation, but to
matters of socio-psychological integration and the capitalist contours of

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

41

culture. This unique blend of Marxism which considers culture and
psychology (rather than just economy) can be identified in the way
Frankfurt scholars understood the rapidly developing consumerist com¬
modity culture of the twentieth century

Horkheimer and Adorno: dominating objects and the psychopathology
of modern life

Florkheimer and Adorno begin Dialectic of Enlightenment (1987[1944j) by
contending that objects of Enlightenment (the philosophy underpinning
modem social life) are endowed with a mythical element that promises
utopian liberation - but delivers domination, ossification and, finally, psy¬
chopathology Reading this text, one could get the impression that a per¬
son might unwittingly fall prey to such things by going to the movies,
listening to pop music and reading newspapers and magazines - or so
Florkheimer and Adomo warned.

Horkheimer and Adorno's goal was to expose enlightenment philoso¬
phy as bankrupt: 'the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster tri¬
umphant' (1987[1944j: 3) is one of the stirring opening sentences from
their treatise on Enlightenment ideology. Their focus in the early parts of
Dialectic of Enlightenment is on the philosophical basis of enlightenment
traditions, and they argue that what supersedes old forms of social dom¬
ination, such as language and military power, is technology. Technology
then becomes the object of their interest and symbolic of a master narra¬
tive of modem life, which is highly understandable given the era in which
they were writing. The reason for CT's concern with technology is inter¬
esting, and can illuminate a crucial aspect of their theoretical outlook. CT
scholars are not interested in technology because of how it mediates or
enables everyday life, or how people interact with it and use it to suit their
own ends, but how it signifies a hollow promise and a technique of sub¬
jugation. Technology is thus ideological (based on false ideas that are
enmeshed within systems of social power) and material (because it
becomes the physical means for controlling bodies).

Horkheimer and Adorno draw attention to key technological advances
associated with the growth of modem societies, or what they called the
Enlightenment project. These were objects such as those Francis Bacon
identified like the printing press, military artillery and the mariner's nee¬
dle. According to modern Enlightenment philosophy each of these things
promised control, productivity and rationality: printing presses allowed
for widespread communication and the promotion of democratic ideals,
artillery allowed nations to protect their citizenry and for citizens to pro¬
tect their private property, while the mariner's needle (compass) allowed
for effective navigation and the discovery (invasion) of new lands and
their resources. Yet, despite their liberatory promise, such objects are
resources for powerful social groups to enslave those with less social

42

Theoretical Approaches

power - rather than liberation, such elements of material culture are the
wherewithal for social exploitation. They become technologies of
exploitation and enslavement.

But, for Adorno and Horkheimer, the problem with modern objects
extends deeper than this, and it is this point that distinguishes them from
earlier materialist Marxist positions because of its emphasis on the psycho-
cultural component of social progress. The trouble with objects in moder¬
nity is not only that such objects materially exploit people and nature (as
Marx first pointed out), but that they psychologically enslave those who
own, possess or use them. This is the sinister flipside of Enlightenment
progress - its 'negative dialectic' in Horkheimer and Adorno's terminology -
which links to the Marxist idea that objects or commodities are not as they
routinely appear. The suggestion is that people are mistaken to believe
that an object (for example, such as a motor vehicle, a business suit, a
computer or a mobile telephone) is positive in its implications for social
progress and individual betterment, or at best neutral in its effects. In
deploying such objects, people actually mentally enslave themselves,
becoming victims of the ideology which is embodied in the objects of
modernity they mistakenly believe liberate them:

Men [s/c] pay for the increase of their power with alienation from that over
which they exercise their power. Enlightenment behaves towards things as a
dictator toward men. He knows them in so far as he can manipulate them. The
man of science knows things in so far as he can make them. (Horkheimer and
Adorno, 1987(1944]: 9)

The ultimate downside of the Enlightenment philosophy is that people
become alienated from the things that they produce, and the effect of
using (perhaps considered 'worshipping' in the language of Horkheimer
and Adorno) such objects is that the organic quality of social relations
become compromised - with the assistance of objects and technologies of
modem life, social relations become ossified, empty and mechanical in
nature. The bottom line is that material culture becomes a mere carrier
of capitalist or Enlightenment ideology. People lose sight of the things
that matter in life (presumably some type of authentic human relations,
though this is not entirely clear), worshipping the power of new technolo¬
gies, which in turn order relations between people to the extent that
organic relations are impossible, and an arthritic influence is extended
over all aspects of human relations.

Horkheimer and Adomo point out that whereas in traditional soci¬
eties objects were 'spiritualised', in modern industrial societies they are
'fetishised' (1987(1944]: 28). Though it was not around in Horkheimer
and Adorno's day, the computer would be a good case to consider here
which one could take to either prove or disprove their assertion. The
computer (including the software within it and its components such as
mouse and monitor) is indeed something that orders the daily existence

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

43

of a good percentage of the global population. Furthermore, it is a
powerful - seemingly indispensable - machine for ordering, calculating
and measuring bits of existence. Currently, it is perhaps the ultimate
mass-owned symbol of progress and achievement (perhaps the mobile
telephone carries similar status for particular social groups). What's
more, it allows us to virtually travel the globe, communicate effectively
with connected others afar, and to sustain personal and professional net¬
works. It is also an object of leisure and shopping as much as it is a tool
of modern life - through that box on your desk what can't you buy over
the internet? Yet, it is something that we may be conned into using (and
upgrading) by marketers and corporate giants - as if it is the ultimate
object for our personal and professional advancement. Moreover, it may
be that far from making our lives easier, the computer complicates our
tasks and disciplines us, molding our consciousness into something akin
to an Excel spreadsheet.

Horkheimer and Adorno (and Adorno alone in the essays collected in
The Culture Industry (1991)) reserve their most trenchant criticism of mod¬
ern life for the emerging culture industries of their time. Though their fas¬
cination for 'new' cultural targets seem somewhat antiquated and
old-fashioned now - cinema, radio, television - their message remains
powerful to the extent that (somewhat) refined versions of such a perspec¬
tive are commonly promulgated in contemporary critical cultural and con¬
sumption studies. In addition, for those currently concerned about the
dross of mass cultural forms from manufactured pop music to glossy mag¬
azines to fashion sneakers, their message has a stirring ring of truth: cul¬
ture is now a commodity like any other and is produced according to the
same degrading logic of exploitation, appropriation and standardisation.

What has happened to the possibility of (sub-)cultural authenticity, you
may ask? Well, in the CT theoretical schema it is available to be purchased
in a range of subtly differentiated forms, so varieties of style have been
catered to match one's identity preference: 'something is provided for all
so that no one may escape; the distinctions are emphasized and extended'
(Horkheimer and Adorno, 1987[1944]: 123). Horkheimer and Adorno link
with lines of theory in classical sociology (particularly Weber and
Durkheim) by pointing out that modem social progress rationalises and
demystifies phenomena (including cultural, artistic and religious forms,
but generally involving the loss of traditional social arrangements based
around community and locality), and that master narratives of social life
are now provided for by commodity-producing cultural industries which
provide a (commodity-based) filter for everyday experience.

Horkheimer and Adorno give a couple of examples to illustrate their
argument. They suggest that radio broadcasts are packaged forms of
entertainment that are standardised and massified. This results in the
denial of human agency and creativity in the engagement with culture,
to the extent that participants become mere 'listeners' who are simply
channels for the consumption of controlled and managed broadcasts

44

Theoretical Approaches

promoting commercial interests. Similarly, in the case of the motor vehicle,
they claim that consumers are conned into believing that subtle differ¬
ences in mass-produced automobiles are meaningful and important. For
example, in today's car market hardly a model is released without a range
of options available, as the following niche market dichotomies illustrate:
economy/luxury, city/country, sporty /thrifty, young person /family, and
so on, depending on whether you're trying to sell a sedan, off -road vehi¬
cle, city runabout, luxury or sports model. Baudrillard, in The System of
Objects (1996[1968]), apparently reworking some ideas of the CT tradition,
wrote about this aspect of marketing through the idea of 'models' and
'series', suggesting that a car cannot readily be differentiated on the basis
of its basic technical function, but on its inessential aspects (like tail fins).
Baudrillard wittily sums up this aspect of 'packaging individuality' that
Horkheimer and Adorno railed against:

The most insignificant object must be marked off by some distinguishing
feature - a colour, an accessory, a detail of one sort or another. Such a detail is
always presented as specific: This dustbin is absolutely original - Gilac Decor
has decked it with flowers for you!’ ‘A revolution in refrigeration - complete
with brand-new freezer compartment and butter softener!’ ‘An electric razor on
the cutting edge of progress - hexagonal, antimagnetic!’. (Baudrillard, 1996
[1968]): 141-2)

Horkheimer and Adorno's ultimate fear seems to be the psychological
degradation of people and the collapse of meaning and value in western
society. The fusion of mindless entertainment with culture is perfected
by the culture industries. Furthermore, the triumph of rationality and
progress embodied in faith in science and technology become pathologi¬
cal features of western societies, deceiving and stultifying the individual.
Moreover, culture industries inhibit the development of a revolutionary
class consciousness, and become a prevailing instrument of social control.
Capitalist commodity culture becomes a dead hand guiding every aspect
of social life - the ultimate denial of human agency and the victory
of commodified culture is the only possibility in such a schema. As
Horkheimer and Adorno (1987[1944]: 127) tellingly put it: 'The might of
industrial society is lodged in men's [sic] minds'. The next section of this
chapter considers the work of Fromm and Marcuse, who develop this
notion further.

The psychic effects of commodity culture:

Fromm, Marcuse and humanistic Marxist psychoanalysis

The work of Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse is often credited with
developing a psychoanalytic - or at least strongly psychological - form of
Marxism. Both writers were interested in the effect of capitalist society on

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

45

the psychological traits and outlooks of individuals. We have seen that in
the work of Horkheimer and Adorno the notion of a psychopathology
generated by capitalist social relations was developed to some degree, but
we must look to Marcuse and particularly Fromm for a fuller develop¬
ment of such an idea. It is as if Marxist critics of the era realised that the
fight for people's consciousness in the factory and workplace was lost,
and that the terrain of criticism must move to other sites - to the consump¬
tion of culture industry goods and new technologies, and the psychic
make-up of people. Thus, the birth of a radical humanist, Marxian-
inspired social psychology that attempted to explain how commodity cul¬
ture impacted on the nature of human beings and their psychological
make-up.

In The Sane Society (1955) Fromm states that the psycho-social problems
he sets out to analyse constitute a 'pathology of normalcy' - a sickness
associated with the nature of humans arising from their modes of every¬
day living in capitalist society. This central thesis of the work may have
been more accurately signalled by titling the work The 'Insane' Society, for
Fromm views the values propagated by western capitalism as psycholog¬
ically inhibiting and ultimately degrading to the realisation of authentic
human ethics. What values does he criticise? Materialism, acquisitiveness
and hyper-individualism constitute his main targets, and it is the relation
of these dispositions to the prevailing commodity culture (which is iden¬
tified as the cause of these pathological values) that makes Fromm's ideas
important. On middle-class prosperity in western capitalist societies,
Fromm points out that although capitalism fulfils our basic needs more
than satisfactorily, the human want to possess wealth and objects of desire
'fails to satisfy profound needs in man [sic]' (1955: 11). This leaves people
with feelings of persistent emptiness and boredom despite their con¬
sumption expenditures and accumulation of objects, eventually stunting
their psychic development as human beings.

Fromm associates such a pathology with wider neuroses in western cul¬
ture, arguing that western society as a whole suffers from a deceptive con¬
dition of 'consensual validation' of its organising principles: 'the fact that
millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not
make these people sane' (1955: 15). Fromm labels the pathology a 'socially
patterned defect', and while he points out that it is possible for individu¬
als to live with such defects without becoming seriously mentally ill, the
final result of the illness is that they fail to actualise a genuine expression
of self. What stops such pathologies from becoming manifestly neurotic
and troubling people to the extent that they can no longer function in their
everyday lives? Escapist forms of consumption - especially within the
realm of culture such as movies or popular magazines - assuage such
pathologies, keeping them at bay by generating temporary feelings of
happiness, satisfaction and self-efficacy. Fromm contends that the core
feature of social existence within capitalist society is alienation from
work, consumption and one's fellow citizens. The problem is not so much

46

Theoretical Approaches

consumption per se - for Fromm saw that it could be a 'meaningful,
human, productive experience' (pp. 133-4) - but the way people consume,
pursuing needs that are frivolous, excessive and undertaken for the
wrong reasons, as he notes:

If I have the money, I can acquire an exquisite painting, even though I may not
have an appreciation for art; I can buy the best phonograph, even though I
have no musical taste; I can buy a library, although I only use it for the pur¬
pose of ostentation. I can buy an education, even though I have no use for it
except as an additional social asset. (Fromm, 1955: 131)

The main problem Fromm saw with consumption is that it was estranged
from human needs, and put to perverse and socially divisive uses, such
as ostentation and social distinction. Acquisition of goods becomes a goal
in itself, effectively displacing genuine human needs - relatedness, cre¬
ativity, brotherliness, individuality and reason - with the empty promises
of material goods. Fromm developed these ideas further in his tellingly
titled work To Have or To Be (1976), which was an inquiry into the charac¬
ter structure of citizenry in western societies who are exposed to the hege¬
monic acquisitive culture promoted by capitalism. Fromm distinguished
between two modes of living: 'having' and 'being'; the former centred
upon materialism and the latter around people and relationships. In the
mode of having, desire to accumulate and acquire goods becomes patho¬
logical to the extent that actualisation of identity is inhibited:

Consuming has ambiguous qualities: It relieves anxiety, because what one
has cannot be taken away; but it also requires one to consume even more,
because previous consumption soon loses its satisfactory character. Modern
consumers may identify themselves by the formula: / am = what I have and
what I consume. (Fromm, 1 976: 27)

Fromm notes similarities between western consumers and Freud's char-
acteristation of the anal personality, suggesting that accumulation of con¬
sumer objects becomes a strategy for displacing painful questions related
to identity and sexuality, resulting in stunted psychological development.
The anal character is a person whose main energy in life is directed
toward having, saving and hoarding things (objects), and Fromm con¬
cludes that since most members of western society are anal in the sense
that they live to acquire, society at large must be sick. Fromm uses the
example of car ownership (1976: 72-3) to explicate the links between the
capitalist system of production that encourages periodic replacement of
personal automobiles through obsolescence, and the accompanying psy¬
chology of personal ownership, which instills in people the idea that own¬
ing a 'new' car is important. Fromm suggests that purchasing and owning
a new car serves a variety of purposes for one's personal psychology: it
is a symbol of social status, it is a symbolic extension of one's ego, it
enhances an individuals' sense of personal efficacy by demonstrating

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

47

one's ability to 'make a deal', and finally, the very fact that the car is new
is important in itself. In consumer societies, people have a constant need
to experience the consumption of new objects 'because the old stimuli are
flat and exhausted' (Fromm, 1976: 73).

Marcuse's One Dimensional Man (1976[1964j) is another work in the
post-Freudian Marxist psychology tradition that, at its core, addresses the
question of integration of the exploited working classes into capitalism.
The essential problem relates to the potential for development of a revo¬
lutionary consciousness within the exploited working classes - now
bought out by the spoils and lures offered by modem western economies
and the ideological promises made in the name of increased rationality
and freedom. Like Fromm, Marcuse's goal was to uncover the ideological
basis of capitalist society. Marcuse exposes what he sees as new forms of
control ('totalitarianism') - the ideology of 'scientism' embodied in posi¬
tivist scientific values, technical forms of knowledge and instrumental
forms of reasons and association, is at the heart of capitalist domination.
Class is arguably less important as a form of exploitation and social con¬
trol in latter day capitalism, and has been replaced by science and technol¬
ogy. Technological rationality is the contemporary substitute for political
forms of rationality, and becomes a new form of social control. Marcuse
argues that advanced capitalism is a dressed-up form of totalitarianism.
Framed by the overarching ideology of the free market, attainment of
technological superiority and differentiated forms of abstract knowledge
become social goals in themselves, and in addition they order the mater¬
ial and psychological existence of people.

Marcuse's 'one-dimensional' society is one where ideas, aspirations
and broader social objectives are framed in terms of the limits presented
by advanced capitalism. People believe they are free in capitalist society,
but Marcuse points out that what they have is only freedom of the mar¬
ket. Therefore, there is freedom to consume (as Bauman puts it a couple
of decades later in Freedom), but this is generated by the creation of false
human needs through marketing and advertising. As Marcuse notes:

... liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination. The range of
choice open to the individual is not the decisive factor in determining the
degree of human freedom, but what can be chosen and what is chosen by the
individual. (Marcuse, 1976(1964]: 21)

Marcuse distinguishes between 'true' and 'false' needs. True needs are
those such as nourishment, clothing, lodging and culture, and are con¬
sumed in accordance with the individual's own judgement of his/her
requirements free from coercion by marketing pressure. The question of
what constitutes a fair determination of one's requirements can only be
made in a truly free society, without the assistance of 'need creating'
industries and ideologies. Advanced industrial society is one that spe¬
cialises in engineering such false needs - Marcuse sees this as the basis of

48

Theoretical Approaches

its totalitarianism. Marcuse observes that individuals' psychologies are
now incorporated into capitalism, rather than just factories and technolo¬
gies being the focus of productive activity. The individual becomes the
expression of capitalist processes, and is simultaneously its agent. False
needs bind people to the existing social order, restricting their freedoms,
their search for happiness, fulfillment and community. Such false needs
become 'ways of life' (1976[1964]: 24) through which an individual -
whose psycho-social development is now pathologically circumscribed
by capitalistic urges - vainly searches for an authentic and viable
self-identity:

The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in
their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. The very mech¬
anism which ties the individual to society has changed, and social control is
anchored in the new needs which it has produced ... Mass production and
mass consumption claim the entire individual, and industrial psychology has
long since ceased to be confined to the factory. (Marcuse, 1 976[1 964]: 22-3)

What can we make of such claims: rants against capitalism, or deeply felt,
valid criticisms of western culture? Given the cultural turn in social the¬
ory and consumption studies in the last couple of decades, such views
seem like outdated and limiting rhetoric. What's more, they don't seem to
fit with what we now know about how and why people consume objects.
Yet, one should not discard critical approaches, but perhaps seek to find
new ways of developing and applying them using careful empirical
approaches and novel theoretical frameworks. An innovative, non-reductive
empirical investigation into the 'productive' elements of advertising that
mobilise new kinds of psychological outlooks or subjectivities, and gener¬
ate relations between people and commodities is offered by Miller and
Rose (1997). Commencing with Marcuse's insight that advertising now
incorporates individuals by transforming them into everyday agents for
capitalist innovation through the commodity sphere. Miller and Rose
make a divergent case by pointing out that studies of the relationship
between advertising, consumption and agency have typically tended to
assume consumers are, at best, passive and robotic in their actions, or, at
worst, irrational or foolish. Marcuse's analysis of one-dimensionality cre¬
ated by culture industries manages to forcefully combine both points of
view, which is a problem with his approach if one wishes to explore the
meaning of human-object relations. Yet, Marcuse did manage to see that
new industries were increasingly using scientific techniques of calculation
and measurement to map consumer desires. In their study. Miller and
Rose use archival material from research conducted at the Tavistock
Institute of Human Relations, which undertook paid work on behalf of
advertisers in the period after the Second World War for corporations sell¬
ing a range of products as diverse as ice cream, beer, petrol and chocolate.
Miller and Rose show how consumers were 'mobilised' - their subjectivi¬
ties assembled - by techniques that offered individuals opportunities for

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

49

self-gratification without breaching civilities, modes of negotiating
tribulations and challenges of everyday life through the deployment of
consumer goods, and new ethics and techniques for living (1997: 32).
Rather than merely reiterating an account where powerful corporate interests
manipulate consumer desires, these constitute technologies that assemble
spaces and modes of action, establishing regimes of governance for the
consuming passions that are mobilised within individuals:

This was not a matter of the unscrupulous manipulation of passive con¬
sumers: technologies of consumption depended upon fabricating delicate
affiliations between the active choices of potential consumers and the quali¬
ties, pleasures and satisfactions represented in the product, organized in part
through the practices of advertising and marketing, and always undertaken in
the light of particular beliefs about the nature of human subjectivity. (Miller and
Rose, 1997: 31)

Popular criticisms of commodity culture

A number of works surfaced in the decades after the Second World War that
considered the basis and ethics of consumer society and had an impact by
bridging public and scholarly consciousness. Broadly, we could distinguish
between criticisms of commodity culture and consumer society emerging
from liberal criticism in economics and public policy, and those emerging
from the new social movements, especially environmentalism.

John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1987[1958j) is perhaps
the best example of liberal criticism from within an American institution¬
alist tradition (see also Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, 1957, or The
Status Seekers, 1959). In The Affluent Society Galbraith highlights the rather
perverse situation achieved by western economies that had solved the
'problem of production', but were beset by other fundamental public sec¬
tor problems. They were able to provide employment and rising incomes
for their citizenry, thereby escaping the risk of poverty (for most citizens)
that had plagued pre-modern societies. Yet, the values of this 'affluent
society' were problematic, for they emphasised and held in esteem the
achievement of private wealth, rather than public wealth or the public
good. The irony of the affluent society was that increasing wealth did not
build up a stock of public (civic) affluence, but only encouraged the
expression of new consumer wants whose necessity was questionable. So,
for example, rather than satisfying hunger and shelter, excellent roads
and public hospitals, contemporary economic activity satisfies desires
for shiny new luxury cars, silk shirts, kitchenware, glossy magazines,
soft drinks and so on. Galbraith diagnosed a 'dependence effect' by which
new wants are created by the very process of production that satisfies
them: the producers of goods are able to synthesise new desires within
consumers. Typically, and problematically from Galbraith's perspective,
economic theory has been reluctant to judge, let alone consider, the moral

50

Theoretical Approaches

nature of consumer wants, and whether they could be classified as frivolous
or essential. More than anything, Galbraith urges us to consider whether the
contrivance by producers of consumer demand for non-essential or luxury
goods should be considered valuable and viable from economic and social
perspectives:

As a society becomes increasingly affluent, wants are increasingly created by
the process by which they are satisfied. This may operate passively. Increases
in consumption, the counterpart of increases in production, act by suggestion
or emulation to create wants. Expectation rises with attainment. Or producers
may proceed actively to create wants through advertising and salesmanship.
Wants thus come to depend on output ... The higher level of production has,
merely, a higher level of want creation necessitating a higher level of want sat¬
isfaction. (Galbraith, 1 987[1 958]: 148)

Galbraith's critique came from within a liberal economic tradition but
around the same time environmental critiques of capitalist consumer cul¬
ture were also emerging. In 1973 E.F. Schumacher published a manifesto
for 'Buddhist economics' that was widely influential and popular - Small
is Beautiful. Schumacher's work can be seen in the same context as popu¬
lar environmentalist critiques of western society, such as Rachel Carson's
landmark work Silent Spring (1962). Schumacher offered an analysis of
western society and its economic principles 'as if people mattered'. He
was critical of the western value of profits and progress as they were
embodied in the search for 'bigger and better' technologies and economic
efficiencies. Schumacher opposed degrading technologies and work¬
places, and exploitative, dehumanising economic principles that ignored
'real' human needs. Like Galbraith, Schumacher criticised the discipline
of economics for making people believe that the problem of production
had been solved. He pointed out that though western societies appear to
be materially better off, this is an illusion that masks the great damage
done to the environment and the human soul in the name of such material
advancement. Schumacher argued for an incorporation of the Buddhist
point of view into western values: to make work more meaningful
and fulfilling, to focus on the local and small-scale in terms of technolo¬
gies and programmes of economic growth, to work with the environ¬
ment rather than seek to dominate it, and to pursue the acquisition of
wealth and commodities keeping in mind the principle that consumption
wants should be satisfied 'to attain given ends with the minimum means'
(1973:48).

Selling ‘good’ forms of consumption: ethical toiletries and
anti-materialist iiber-designers

The success of environmental and social critics like Schumacher and
Galbraith in encouraging people to question the extent of their consumption

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

51

and materialist values has been cleverly incorporated into marketing. The
fact that in many markets' consumers are increasingly educated, and anx¬
ious, about the ethical standards companies adhere to has meant a change
in the way corporate ethical standards are presented, if not practised.
Marketing for some products encourages consumers to look for goods that
are environmentally friendly (e.g. safe domestic pesticides, plastic shop¬
ping bags, reduced use of aerosols) and produced according to ethical
principles (e.g. animal products such as eggs and meat, fashion and sports
wear). Presuming one consumes the 'right' goods, personal acquisition can
be seen to service a more just society and improved environment.

Anita and Gordon Roddick's 'Body Shop' philosophy is a good exam¬
ple here. The Body Shop began trading in 1976 with the core goal of deliv¬
ering profits to investors, and luxury toiletry and cosmetic goods to
customers (much the same goals as typical corporations). Yet, The Body
Shop also strives to promote social and environmental responsibility and
change. The Body Shop has developed and promoted a statement of its
'Values Mission' to define its ethical approach to business practice. These
statements offer good public relations for the company, advertise the com¬
pany's stock to the growing ethical investment industry, and encourage
consumers to 'feel good' about buying their products, perhaps alleviating
feelings of guilt some may have about the origin and testing of toiletry
products they purchase. The core principles of The Body Shop's ethical
approach are: Defend Human Rights, Protect our Planet, Support
Community Trade, Activate Self-Esteem and Against Animal Testing.

Just as Schumacher proposed 'Buddhist economics', is it possible to
have Buddhist consumerism? The Body Shop is one way to think about
such a possibility. French designer Philippe Starck's postmodern pitch to
assuage consumerist excess is another. In The Body Shop case what was
being encouraged was environmentally and ethically responsible con¬
sumption. In the case of marketing for the design products made by
Philippe Starck, we can see a curious pitch to alleviate any guilt associated
with fitting out one's household top to bottom in Starck designer gear.
Starck's designs have acquired a ubiquity in the aspirational middle-class
household, and have made him one of the most creative and interesting
designers of the last half-century. When one thinks of modem design,
masters such as Ame Jacobsen, Charles and Ray Eames, Le Corbusier,
Mies van de Rohe and Verner Panton come to mind. In Starck, we see not
just the objects of design, but the apotheosis of designer as brand and
celebrity. What is important is not just the objects that Starck designs, but
Starck's aura as a designer.

Starck's persona is managed through the dissemination of ludic
imagery: Starck as provocateur or clown who creates objects and spaces
of play, fantasy, irony and childish pleasures. In Starck's designs for
domestic objects we can see a postmodern concoction of irony, humour
and irreverence coupled with the residual modern desire to sell 'good
design' to the aesthetically impoverished masses: think of his range of

52

Theoretical Approaches

playful oral hygiene products (the toothbrush named 'Dr Kiss' and the
toothpick set named 'Dr Kleen'), or his famous toilet brush and flyswat¬
ter (named 'Dr Skud'). Though he has designed and decorated a massive
range of objects, scapes and environments including hotels, airport con¬
trol towers, waste recycling plants, motorcycles, boutiques, breweries and
bookstores, Starck is known to most consumers for his range of mundane
household goods that allow those with relatively small amounts of spare
cash to buy into the design market and the Starck brand cachet.

One of the downsides for Starck is that his designs have become asso¬
ciated with a period of luxury and excess in the 1980s and 1990s. Thus,
Starck was the perfect designer for cash-rich 'yuppies' and wannabe
design aficionados. Yet, understandably, this is not the legacy Starck
wishes to cultivate. Hence his range of 'Good Goods' promoted in the late
1990s advertised as: 'The Catalogue of Non-Products for the Non-
Consumer for the Next Moral Market' (see Sweet, 1999). Attempting to make
a stand against the acquisitive values of consumerism and materialism -
that, ironically, his empire of designer goods is built upon - Starck pro¬
claims that from now on he shall produce 'non-products':

It is a global proposal, my last major work, and it is about the equipment of
life - about food, washing powder, clothes, music, books, transport, furniture,
toys. I call these the ‘No Products’. They are No Products because they are
not created by marketing or advertising or by greedy people wanting to make
piles of money. These are the basics of life made to fulfill a function with
respect, fantasy, creativity, tenderness, humour and love. (Starck, in Sweet,
1999: 9)

It is difficult to judge the sincerity of Starck's anti-materialist manifesto,
though it appears to be somewhat disingenuous given the personal
profit he derives from the design industry. What the Starck case illus¬
trates is how the consumption of design is framed by the consumer's
anxiety not to be seen as 'too materialistic', or obsessed with the acqui¬
sition of frivolous or fanciful objects. Enthusiastic consumers are caught
between establishing what is seen as an authentic or 'real' self-identity
in the eyes of others, and the pressure to accumulate the 'right' collec¬
tion of household designer objects necessary to establish themselves as
a person of taste or good judgement (see Woodward, 2003). Starck's
marketing strategy is to offer them a tactic for easing any anxiety -
his design pieces distinguish the purchaser as a person of aesthetic
integrity, but are amusing, ironic and serve to deconstruct themselves. A
further matter for Starck relates to whether the integrity of his designs
are challenged by the fact that the Starck brand is associated with such
a wide range of design products, becoming synonymous with con-
sumerist desire for objects with design cachet. Before concluding this
chapter, let's return briefly to ponder Starck's postmodern manifesto for
the consumers of his design objects:

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

53

Less is more. In the past five years I have changed completely. I am not the
same man - now I am far more well tuned. Our civilization is based on the
idea of making progress, so I cannot stop - I have to make things better, it is
poetic. It is not enough to make things of beauty, however. They must also be
good. The beautiful object was the product of a particular cultural regime, a
regime obsessed with aesthetics. The problem with this is that the regime was
ruled by the laws of taste, by what is in fashion and what is out of fashion.
These laws are some of the most important levers of consumerism and lead
to over-consumption. (Starck, in Sweet, 1999: 15)

Conclusion: evaluating critical approaches to the commodity
object

Before proceeding to evaluate the critical perspective, consider the follow¬
ing recap of the general features of the critical account of material culture:

• Marx's materialist analysis of capitalism offers a production-based,
rather than a consumption-based, account of human relations. Material
culture is seen as something that relates principally to the sphere of
economic production, rather than transformed through its appropria¬
tion in the act of consumption. Marx focused on how the workers who
produce commodities (in an exploitative workplace) must then face
these commodities in another social sphere (the marketplace). This is
the basis for false consciousness of the working class, as workers do not
recognise the way their labour has been exploited in the process of pro¬
ducing the commodity objects they desire and purchase. In Marx's
analysis of capitalism, the commodified material culture that we use in
everyday life is the material expression of exploited labour, embodying
the sweat, blood and energy of workers.

• Consumers encounter material culture as something that is 'external'
to them, as if it magically appears on shop shelves, rather than having
a history. People uncritically accept material culture as autonomous,
ahistorical and separate from social relations. Developing the ideolog¬
ical implications of Marx's thesis, Lukacs referred to this as 'reification'.
Reification ultimately directs consumer's attention away from a criti¬
cal understanding of the 'truth' about the origin of the objects they
consume.

• Asa corollary, Lukacs argued that consumer objects are carriers of cap¬
italist ideology. By engaging in the act of purchase and use of consumer
objects, consumers are really purchasing an embodiment of bourgeois
ideology, thus reproducing capitalist relations.

• The Frankfurt School scholars emphasised how material and consumer
culture suppresses, and eventually deadens, people's critical and aes¬
thetic faculties. New forms of social control develop based around
the mapping (and creation) of consumer desire through marketing

54

Theoretical Approaches

industries, and people become psychologically enslaved by the objects
they consume - mindlessly entertained by frivolous goods to the extent
that such consumption ultimately undermined their 'authentic' human
needs for community, creativity and reason. For Fromm and Marcuse -
scholars who developed a Marxist inspired form of psychoanalysis -
this symbolised a pathological social system where people strive for
acquisition of goods (what Fromm called the dominant social mode of
'having') as a substitute for the development of genuine, authentic
human traits based on the mode of 'being'.

To what extent does Marxism and critical theory offer viable theoretical
models for understanding material culture? The following arguments can
be made in favour of such theoretical models:

• Critical accounts of the commodity object remind us that the objects we
consume have to be made and distributed by someone, somewhere in
the world. Most often, the people involved 'on the ground' in the pro¬
duction process in factories are far less privileged than we who do the
consuming. Thus, critical accounts remind us that there are likely to be
a set of unequal structural conditions that exist behind regimes of pro¬
duction and consumption.

• Critical accounts also suggest to us that we could do an ethical audit
of the nature and origin of our personal consumption. Therefore, it
points out that things such as global and regional economic and social
inequalities, environmental damage, and harm to animals, should all
play a part in determining the ethical standards we follow in our con¬
sumption practice.

• Critical theory allows us to reflect on how our own consumption prac¬
tices might be fetishistic. This would be where our acquisition of con¬
sumer objects is undertaken for acquisitive or obsessive reasons,
without any reflexive engagement as to how such consumption is
linked to the positive development of self-image and self-efficacy. For
example, a collector of shoes might question why they need so many
pairs, or a fashion enthusiast might reflect on why they feel compelled
to constantly be 'in fashion'.

Critical and Marxist accounts have generally fallen out of favour in stud¬
ies of consumption and material culture. The following are commonly
identified as their major flaws:

• Critical and Marxist accounts are generally about materialism and are
materialist in analytic style, rather than having an interest in materiality.
For this reason they offer inadequate models for understanding the
relations between people and objects. Accounts of materialism focus on
social modes of acquisition, and the associated ideology of consumerism

The Deceptive, Suspicious Object

55

where people become motivated to acquire consumer objects as the
dominant mode of lifestyle. Materialist accounts focus on the material
relations between owners of means of production and workers, pro¬
ducers and consumers, arguing that such categories give rise to basic
social inequalities. On the other hand, critical and Marxist accounts
neglect materiality - the most crucial dimension in understandings of
material culture - which refers to the relations between people and
objects, especially the way in which social life is inherently structured
by everyday dealings with objects, such as technology or objects of
memory.

The most serious objection to critical and Marxist accounts is that they
undertheorise agency in their conception of the relation between
people and objects. Having agency in dealings with material culture
doesn't just mean that people can experience pleasure or freedom
when they engage with material culture, but that their engagements
with material culture can possibly be subversive. Critical and Marxist
accounts do not conceive that relations between people and material
items of consumer culture can be creative, liberatory, constructive,
expressive and emotional. Rather, they simply posit a reductive and
determinist model that says all commodity objects embody exploita¬
tion, and that commodities serve ideological interests. The most
sophisticated theoretical critique of such accounts is developed by
Miller (1987), who argues that the work the consumer does after pur¬
chasing a good defines the essence of the consumption act:

consumption as work may be defined as that which translates the object
from an alienable to an inalienable condition; that is, from being a sym¬
bol of estrangement and price value to being an artefact invested with
particular inseparable connotations. (Miller, 1987: 190)

Miller's point is that rather than dismiss mass-produced consumer
goods as facile or irrelevant, we must understand them as crucial ele¬
ments of culture. Not only do mass produced goods constitute the
material environment we traverse, but they are integral to the process
of objectification through which we establish our identities, affiliations
and practices in everyday life (Miller, 1987: 215).

Critical and Marxist accounts are uncertain about what recommenda¬
tions to make to address the problems they diagnose. Even if the
commodity objects people deal with in everyday life do embody
exploitation and deaden consumer's critical faculties, what steps might
be taken to change this, given people generally desire more goods and
the rising standards of living often associated with them? Further, is
there such a thing as an 'authentic' good serving a 'real' need? Who
could arbitrate such a thing? (Miller, 1987: 188).

56

Theoretical Approaches

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

The introductory tracts of Marx’s Capital constitute bedrock statements on how
and why material culture should be understood, first and foremost, as a commod¬
ity object. The early pages should be readily understandable to intermediate under¬
graduate students and beyond. Likewise, if one can overcome (or overlook) the
arcane technical language, Lukacs essay ‘Reification and the consciousness of the
proletariat’ (in Lukacs, 1971) and Horkheimer and Adorno’s introductory essay in
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1987[1944]), offer definitive post-Marxian statements
on the deleterious effects of commodity culture. See also Erich Fromm’s To Have
or to Be? (1976) if you sometimes feel you are too acquisitive in your own con¬
sumption patterns and require conversion to a simpler life. While these books will
not use the term ‘material culture', one can infer how these authors understand the
place of material culture in society. For a comprehensive and informed introduc¬
tion to critical theory and its relation to Marxism, see Douglas Kellner's Critical
Theory, Marxism and Modernity (1989a). Also in this vein, see David Held's Introduction
to Critical Theory (1980). For a contemporary, reasoned discussion of personal and
ethical problems related to consumerism, seek out Juliet B. Schor’s research, start¬
ing with Do Americans Shop Too Much? (2000) before progressing to some of her
journal papers. The work by Taylor and Tilford (in Schor and Holt’s The Consumer
Society Reader (2000)) puts the ecological case against ever-increasing patterns
of consumption. Though it recites familiar arguments, at least it does so using
contemporary data.

FOUR

The Object as Symbolic Code.
Structural and Semiotic Approaches

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter reviews the work of key authors who adopt a semiotic

and structural approach to theorising material culture, and commod¬
ity culture broadly It has four main sections:

• an introduction to structuralism and Saussure's groundwork for
a semiotics of everyday culture

• an examination of Levi-Strauss' structuralist program for studying
cultural objects

• an examination of Barthes' and Baudrillard's work on consumer
societies and material culture

• a summary of Hebdige's work on sub-cultures which draws upon
the structuralist semiotic tradition and critical sub-cultural theory.

...being in their place is what makes them sacred for if they were taken out of
their place, even in thought, the entire order of the universe would be
destroyed. Sacred objects therefore contribute to the maintenance of order in
the universe by occupying the places allocated to them. They ... concern to
assign every single creature, object or feature to a place within a class. (Levi-
Strauss, 1 966[1 962]: 10)

Structuralism, semiotics and reading material culture

The essential principle of the semiotic approach to studying material cul¬
ture is that objects are signs referring to something other than themselves.
As Eco (1976) beguilingly put it - the sign is intrinsically a lie. That is, an
object is held to be a 'sign' of something else, a proxy for some other social
meaning. For example, an object might refer to a category of social status

58

Theoretical Approaches

like a person's occupation, their religion or gender. Or, an object might
refer to a particular feature of a person's self-identity related to their affil¬
iations and associations. Thus, according to the semiotic approach, mate¬
rial culture is said to be a 'signifier' that communicates things to others,
accomplishing some king of social 'work'.

Consider a couple of introductory examples, the first of which was used
by the semiotician Roland Barthes in his book Mythologies (1993[1957j).
Barthes pointed out that a bunch of red roses is not merely an aesthetic and
olfactory delight, but a cultural symbol of romance and love. Likewise, the
wedding ring is a powerful traditional symbol of romantic love. Similarly,
think of the necktie worn by a businessman. It should be obvious that peo¬
ple do not generally wear a necktie for the sake of comfort. Rather, they
wear a necktie for a variety of other possible reasons, including symbolis¬
ing their status as someone of importance, to abide by the dress conven¬
tions of a particular workplace, or to demonstrate to others that they
perceive a social situation as formal. Or, consider a person who owns and
drives a Rolls Royce motorcar. What would this communicate to you?
There is no certainty about such matters of judgement, but it would likely
indicate that the person is wealthy. It might also suggest something about
the owner's broader social values. For example, it may suggest that they
are from an 'old money' family background - or that they are trying to be
perceived in such a way - or, that they are socially conservative.

Reading material culture

Being able to 'read' material culture in terms of its cultural meaning is an
indispensable - yet somewhat problematic - social skill that is integral to
our commonsense everyday interpretations. This is especially the case in
large metropolitan centres, where potential for visual contact amongst cit¬
izenry is high, yet the probability of personal interaction is low. Such
'readings' of visible material culture afford rapid social communication
without the need for speech. This allows people to make speedy judge¬
ments about social situations and others as they enter their visual field
within various urban scenes. Yet, conversely, this skill also forms the basis
for making hasty, stereotypical or discriminatory judgements based on
incorrect classifications of people or things as dangerous, or a threat to
social order. For example, a youth carrying a skateboard in a shopping
mall, or other privatised public space, may be identified by local security
as potentially troublesome. The skateboard has the capacity to symbolise
social threat or danger within this consumption context.

In addition to the possibility for social and cultural discrimination based
on making such generalised readings of material culture, there is a further
fundamental risk associated with our search for social and cultural mean¬
ings through attendance to bits of everyday material culture. The idea that
there could be unanimously correct, universally available readings of the

The Object as Symbolic Code

59

meanings of material culture is problematic for three important reasons. In
the first instance, we do not always have access to another individual's
intended meaning for wearing, possessing or displaying some item of
material culture. In fact, it may be that an individual claims or feels no
meaning should be attached to their use or display of an object. Secondly,
sometimes we simply do not have the cultural skills or 'capital' required to
interpret the meaning of objects. This is the case if our interpretations of
things - like items of clothing or shoes - rely on possessing specialist cul¬
tural knowledges, or cultural nuances, of which we are unaware. Thirdly,
the use of material culture is always contextualised within particular time
and space settings where social conventions of appropriateness and consid¬
eration are mobilised. When certain pieces of material culture are viewed
outside the boundaries of time and space that define their meaning, they
can appear incongruous, inconsistent or even disturbing.

Reflect on a couple of examples which illustrate some of the complexi¬
ties and nuances of reading material culture. First, consider what you might
wear to a dance party or nightclub. You would be unlikely to choose the
same outfit to wear to a relative's marriage, or in turn, a funeral. This
would be a faux pas - literally a 'false step' - wrong move, or social gaffe.
Your relatives are likely to consider your dance party attire inappropriate
or insensitive for the mood of solemnity at a funeral, just as it is likely to
be unsuitable for the ambience of elegance desired at most weddings. To
take a second example, wearing a cross around one's neck is potentially
ambiguous in its message, though again this depends on time and space
contexts, and other information we can gather about the wearer of the
cross. Wearing a cross can display a person's commitment to Christianity -
a visible symbol for self and others displaying the key symbolic act in
Christian mythology. Alternately, wearing a cross is also associated with
the dress and musical styles of gothic sub-cultures. Is it possible to con¬
fuse a 'goth' with a Christian church-goer on the basis that both are wear¬
ing a cross? One would have to admit this is possible, but not likely. This
is not just because many goths tend to follow alternative spiritual beliefs
and would rail against mainstream Christianity, but because we can use
other material cues to help us make likely classifications. As most of us
know, goths are also likely to wear black clothing, with signature items
such as dark overcoats and black leather boots, have dark hair, body
piercing, pale skin and extravagant jewellery. This is not an expected
mode of self-presentation for committed Christians, who we would gen¬
erally presume to be more moderate and conservative in their presenta¬
tion of self, exhibited by softer colours, more modest clothing styles and
conservatively styled hair.

Finally, to take another example which illustrates the complexities of
making readings of material culture, think about the proliferation of fash¬
ion sneakers in recent years. For the last decade or so, sneakers, or train¬
ers, have become the choice of footwear amongst fashion conscious urban
youth (see Miles, 1996). Sneakers often borrow their design and aesthetic

60

Theoretical Approaches

features from sportswear of earlier eras, appropriating fashions and
trends of the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, some of the most popular sneakers
today produced by mainstream sports brands such as Puma or Adidas
reproduce sneaker models from the 1970s that were originally designed
for basketball players, tennis players or even wrestlers. Does the contem¬
porary wearer of such sneakers signal a direct association with basketball,
tennis or wrestling by wearing such shoes? Generally, the answer is no. A
knowledge of the history of the shoe design may be important to the
wearer as a form of distinctive cultural capital. However, the meaning of
the sneaker must be seen in temporal context, using nuanced forms of cul¬
tural capital, often dosed heavily with irony. Some decades on, these
types of models are now strictly fashion objects, completely stripped of
utility related to their original designed purpose, and appropriated
within fashion logics where they are free to signify multiple, contradic¬
tory, conflicting messages, at the whim of the wearer who attempts to
master the game of fashion through wearing such objects. Those ill-
equipped with the cultural skills to engage in ironic, ludic readings may
see such models of sneakers as bizarre, eccentric or plain inappropriate.

The point of these examples is that we cannot always assume a social
message is directly or simply coded in an object, as if there is universal or
perfect social knowledge of the manifold codes that frame material culture
(see Campbell, 1995a, 1996). Yet, some of the most important contributions
to understanding how people use material culture are substantially predi¬
cated upon the understanding that material culture is put to social work
by actors to communicate a social message, including the work of Veblen,
Goffman and Bourdieu. Though such authors have developed original
contributions to understanding consumption and the social use of mater¬
ial culture that do not make formal use of semiotic analysis, their theories
do rely to some degree on a model of 'semiosis' - or social recognition of
the value and meaning of items of material culture - where consumption
is assumed to convey certain social messages within networks of relational
meaning. Before considering such theories in later chapters, we must first
examine how the field of social semiotics we know today emerged from
the theoretical tradition known as structuralism.

Structuralism as a general model for understanding culture

Smith (2001) gives an effective outline of the core features of the struc¬
turalist approach to analysing culture by pointing to five tenets.

• First, though the 'surface' of social life appears complicated, diverse
and unpredictable, there are generative processes beneath it that guide
the playing out of such minutiae. Thus, in order to come to grips with
all that we identify at the face of social life, we need to look to deeper,
constructive processes.

The Object as Symbolic Code

61

• These deeper constructive processes are relationally patterned, and
they are also limited in number. So, a relatively small number of fun¬
damental generative cultural schemes are present within a society, and
these can be recombined in various ways. Levi-Strauss (1966 [1962])
referred to this process as 'systems of transformations'.

• The analyst of this structuralist generative scheme is objective. There
are deep generative principles to be discovered; however everyday
social actors who are immersed in them take them for granted, along
with most aspects and events in social life. Consequently, they are not
able to identify such structures. The patterns that these structures cre¬
ate on the surface of cultural life can be best observed and analysed by
detached scientific investigation that employs a structuralist analytic
approach.

• While early structuralism developed around the turn of the twentieth
century from linguistic origins in the theories of Peirce and Saussure,
later developments by Barthes and Levi-Strauss in the middle of the
twentieth century extended the analogies between language and cul¬
ture, arguing that aspects of culture such as food, cuisine or motor
vehicles could be analysed through structuralist methods. For exam¬
ple, foods or cuisine can be understood according to rules associated
with cultural preferences for hot and cold, raw or cooked. Consequently,
cultural objects can be decoded using a structuralist approach, as if
they were a language.

• Finally, structural approaches tend to negate the role of the human sub¬
ject. The focus of structuralist analysis is the working of the 'language
of culture', according to systematic rules at the heart of social life. This
was in contrast to approaches that emphasised the agency of the
human subject in enacting or mediating such rules. It should be noted
that such agentic approaches in sociological theory were substantially
developed after the birth of linguistic structuralism.

Saussure and systems of linguistic communication

Largely, the genesis of the principles Smith (2001) outlines can be identi¬
fied in the work of the founder of structural linguistics, Ferdinand de
Saussure. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1966[1916]) was pub¬
lished posthumously, compiled from lecture notes gathered over the
period 1907-11 from consecutive cohorts of his students at the University
of Geneva. Saussure's great contribution was to conceptualise the sys¬
temic structures of language, making his work foundational to the devel¬
opment of linguistics. One might ask why Saussure's ideas on language
are seminal, and more importantly, one may ask what linguistics has to do
with studies of material culture? The answer to this is that the authority
and elegance of Saussure's conceptualisation of linguistic structures
meant that the mode of analysis Saussure developed to examine language

62

Theoretical Approaches

could be used to investigate the structures of culture more broadly,
including systems of objects as diverse as clothing, technological objects,
food, the built environment and motor vehicles. This is why it is impor¬
tant to know about Saussure's theories. In the following section his influ¬
ential ideas are elaborated.

An important feature of Saussure's approach was his interest in syn¬
chronic, rather than diachronic, studies of language. Previous scholarship
within the field of linguistics had focused primarily on the historical evo¬
lution of language systems over time - their diachronic features. Saussure
argued that at any particular point in time, language must exist as a
system - a series of related parts that are inseparable and form a system of
linguistic communication. This system was not necessarily closed, invio¬
lable or inflexible, for as we know, language conventions change over time.
Yet, at any point in time language could be analysed as a communicative
system. Accordingly, rather than attending to the proliferation of 'speech
acts' - words, sounds, sound images and alphabetic texts - Saussure
argued that scholars must understand these linguistic structures as: (i)
irreducibly psychological, (ii) intrinsically contoured by social-communal
codes, and above all, (iii) as a system. Thus, language is a social institu¬
tion whose structures must be understood on their own terms - 'in itself',
and as a system of relations (Saussure, 1966[1916]: 16). Language then,
conceptualised through Saussure's systemic perspective, becomes a 'self-
contained whole and a principle of classification' (1966[1916j: 9) - a sys¬
tem of signs (1966[1916j: 15).

The 'systemness' of linguistic phenomena is further emphasised by
Saussure's important distinction between 'langue' and 'parole'. In short¬
hand, one might think of langue as referring to language, while parole
refers to speech. To elaborate, langue refers to the underlying rules and
principles that govern the use of language and is used by Saussure to refer
to its systemic quality, for example, the order in which we combine words
to make sense. On the other hand, parole refers to the phonic and psycho¬
logical manifestations of language - talk, utterances and sounds - that
comprise the surface of language. These are the innumerable speech acts
that humans proliferate each day.

Rather than the busy surface of speech facts that comprises the parole,
Saussure's interest was in the generative capacity of the langue, which he
identified as 'a well-defined object in the heteregeneous mass of speech
facts' (Saussure, 1966[1916]: 14). A crucial element of the langue was that
it could be understood as a system of relational differences, meaning that
something can only be understood in structural relation to other things
from which it is different: thus, 'where there is meaning . . . there is struc¬
ture' (Pettit, 1975: 3). For example, as a category of domestic companion,
we understand 'cat' to be different to 'dog', 'parrot' or 'duck'. Similarly,
we understand the meaning of 'green' within a system of colours by its
difference to 'red', 'yellow' and 'blue'. Likewise, to use a material culture
example, we understand different categories of shoes, assigning them

The Object as Symbolic Code

63

different roles according to their usages - sports shoes for tennis or
running, sneakers for street wear, low-cut leather shoes for formal occa¬
sions, moccasins for domestic relaxation, and leather boots for late night,
or glamorous occasions. We know one type of shoe from its difference to
another - a different colour, shape, sole and so on. Thus, getting back to
Saussure, what co-ordinates the proliferation of words in our language is
a system of relational differences, where the meaning of one thing is
understood in terms of its difference or opposition to others. In Saussure's
words then, the langue is an 'inventory of distinctions which create signs
and of rules of combination' (1966[1916]: 33).

The system of signs can be further understood with reference to
Saussure's ideas of 'signifiers' and 'signified'. The 'sign' is the unity cre¬
ated by a concept and a sound-image. Within the linguistic system, there
is an opposition between the signified, which is the concept, and the sig¬
nifies which is the sound-image or word that refers to it. Thus, we can
think of a particular category of flora or vegetation through such signi¬
fiers, be it a category of flora such as 'tree', 'shrub' or 'succulent', which
can be visually identified through images called forth, such as their
distinctive shapes - called the 'signified'. For explanatory purposes,
Saussure makes a preliminary delineation of these concepts as if they
were separate, though he maintains that to acquire cultural meaning they
can only exist as components of a single sign - 'the two elements (of the
signifier and signified) are intimately united, and each recalls the other'
(1966[1916j: 66). Such signs should be understood as the basic units of lan¬
guage. Importantly, Saussure argues that the sign is necessarily arbitrary
in nature, which means that the sequence of sounds we use to sound a sig¬
nifier ('tree', 'dog', 'yellow shoe') is arbitrary, and comes to be accepted
through collective use by members of a community over time.

For scholars of material culture perhaps Saussure's most important
contribution - though one he does little more than offer a preliminary sug¬
gestion for in Course - is the proposal for a more broadly conceived pro¬
gramme of a 'science that studies the life of signs within society' (1966[1916j:
16). Linguistics then forms only one part of the general science of 'semiol¬
ogy'. The task of the general science of semiology is to contribute to under¬
standing the exchange of meanings in society, which function as signs.
According to Saussure's structuralist approach, underlying codes, conven¬
tions and relations that function as sign systems must generate these signs.
This programme is more than simply a science of language, but an applica¬
tion of semiology to other realms of culture. In Saussure's words:

Linguistics is only part of the general science of semiology, the laws discov¬
ered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circum¬
scribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts. This
procedure will do more than to clarify the linguistic problem. By studying rites,
customs etc. as signs, I believe that we shall throw new light on the facts and
point up the need for including them in a science of semiology and explaining
them by its laws. (1966(1916]: 16-7)

64

Theoretical Approaches

Thus, if we think about how to apply such a principle to studying material
culture, we can say that material objects or things should not be seen as iso¬
lated, individual things but as part of a broader system of object signs. Now
we can begin to identify some of the impact of Saussure's ideas on later
developments in social and cultural theory. Cue Baudrillard's proto¬
structuralist study of consumer goods The System of Objects (1996[1968j), or
Barthes' The Fashion System (1967) where the Saussaurian linguistic imper¬
ative drives an analysis of societies wherein objects exist in rare abundance.
Saussure's theorisation also has important implications for twentieth-
century structural anthropology, the burgeoning field of semiotics (no
longer called 'semiology' as Saussure had originally named it), and recent
accounts of systems of ordering and technology within science studies,
where the notion of relational or cohered objects is crucial to understanding
modem systems of order and fluidity.

Levi-Strauss: cracking the code of (material) culture

It is in the anthropological studies of Claude Levi-Strauss that we can
identify one important line of influence for Saussure's structuralism. Levi-
Strauss' general approach is instructive and highly influential in laying
the foundations of the structuralist theoretical scheme, which he applied
with great intellectual skill and precision in anthropological studies of
myth, kinship and consciousness. The powerful ambition of Levi-Strauss'
analytic model is apparent in the subtitle to his book Myth and Meaning
(1979), 'Cracking the Code of Culture'. We can see from this subtitle that
Levi-Strauss' oeuvre is of no small ambition - to apply the structuralist
model developed by Saussure to studies of culture in order to uncover the
underlying laws: to 'crack its code'.

First, one should understand that Levi-Strauss' ideas can be regarded as
anti-phenomenological. He believed that self-understanding was con¬
trary to scientific understandings, and so rejected the promise of a subjec¬
tive basis for interpretation and meaning (see Pettit, 1975). This key
principle of the structural approach is diametrically opposed to much
contemporary work in material culture studies which - in its opposition
to forms of Marxist determinism - gives priority to individual interpreta¬
tion and narrative in a sphere of meaning generally divorced from
structural relations of production and consumption. In his key works,
Levi-Strauss argued a line of structuralist determinism (Pettit, 1975),
meaning that the expressions of the human mind are determined by lin¬
guistic laws and semiological systems which are not knowable to every¬
day actors or non-specialists.

It was Levi-Strauss' intention to offer a scientific way of understanding
the linguistic expressions of the mind: following the philosophers
Haudricourt and Granai he believed uncovering these semiological sys¬
tems was akin to the Copernican revolution, or to the revolutionary role

The Object as Symbolic Code

65

of nuclear physics within the physical sciences (1968[1963j: 33). Structural
linguistics conceived in the Levi-Straussian tradition were likely to be the
only 'social science' that could rightfully be called a science. Furthermore,
it would have implications not only for understanding language, but for
all forms of cultural communication: it offered diverse applications out¬
side formal linguistics of speech, to fields of anthropology, sociology and
psychology (1968[1963j: 31). From here, we can begin to make links to the
field of material culture, and contemporary commodity culture. There is
a surfeit of commodities in advanced society, but how can one make sense
of them and their communicative capacities? Do they fit together into
some form of understandable sequence or system? Are their meanings
understandable at a systemic level as forms of cultural communication,
using the scientific and linguistic model advocated by Levi-Strauss?

In The Savage Mind f l 966[1 962J) Levi-Strauss investigates the scientific
practice of the 'primitives'. Resisting attempts to portray primitive thought
as inferior (Smith, 2001: 105) as people in the west often assumed, he
showed how primitive forms of classification and cultural ordering were
akin to what we in western societies have called 'science'. In fact, the
processes of primitive ordering were analogous to the processes of
advanced 'science', having both practical and intellectual uses. Working
with Saussure's fundamental principle of communicative systems in
mind, Levi-Strauss argued that the universe is ordered according to sys¬
tems of classification and taxonomies. Thus, objects can be understood
within particular contexts where systemic cultural rules and codes oper¬
ate to inform and contextualise their meaning. Objects therefore have
appropriate cultural places.

For example, think of a crucifix as a sacred object. If it were possible to
empty our own cultural knowledge of the crucifix's meanings and associ¬
ations, we could identify it quite simply as a piece of timber affixed to
another piece at a point three quarters along its length forming a 90
degree angle. If however, you live in a country that identities Christianity
as the predominant religion, then to many people the crucifix is much
more than two pieces of wood. It carries great symbolic meaning to those
who follow the Christian religion, and signifies a crucial element of the
most important story of Christianity. The crucifix then has great symbolic
potency in particular cultural contexts, which is acquired through the cir¬
culation of religious myths. On a contrasting plane - perhaps a profane
plane depending on your perspective - think of the visual ensemble of
dress deployed in British punk sub-culture of the 1970s. Take the example
of the safety pin, which is a motif of punk style. Considered apart from
punk style, the safety pin seems an innocuous enough object, its principal
function being to temporarily affix clothing, for example when a button
goes missing or a zip malfunctions. Yet, within the system of punk style
the safety pin is reappropriated by being worn outside its normal conven¬
tions, appended to jackets or shirts, acquiring symbolic potency precisely
because it is worn outside of context. As Flebdige points out in his classic

66

Theoretical Approaches

study of the signifying styles of youth sub-cultures, rather than destroying
conventions, the visual ensemble of punk actually disorients them:

Safety pins were taken out of their domestic ‘utility’ context and worn as grue¬
some ornaments through the cheek, ear or lip ... The perverse and abnormal
were valued instrinsically. (Hebdige, 1979: 107)

Returning to Levi-Strauss, and keeping in mind the punk sub-culture
example, we can understand that objects have symbolic potency because
they have a place. They therefore also have a non-place: a place where
they are out of context. To have a cultural place implies the existence of a
larger scheme of classification, which Levi-Strauss' science of structural
linguistics was able to identify:

being in their place is what makes them sacred for if they were taken out of
their place, even in thought, the entire order of the universe would be
destroyed. Sacred objects therefore contribute to the maintenance of order
in the universe by occupying the place allocated to them. (Levi-Strauss,

1 966[1 962]: 10)

In explaining the nature of mythical thought - how it came to build clas¬
sifications, rituals and orders - Levi-Strauss referred to the idea of the
'bricoleur'. Although Levi-Strauss originally used the idea to describe an
intellectual strategy, the term has applications to studying the way people
interact with material objects, whether it is in the domains of dress and
clothing, home decoration or collecting. The bricoleur is a kind of 'tin-
kerer', who is able to bring multiple creative tools and strategies to bear
to solve material problems or create new structures. Using a host of
materials lying around at various stages of construction or (dis)repair
the bricoleur works by continuously responding to the ever-changing
requirements of a task, as makeshift materials show themselves to be use¬
ful or not, to varying degrees. In this way, the bricoleur can be said to
practise a 'science of the concrete', whereby totemic messages are encoded
and re-coded within the simplest materials of the natural world.
Although the medium may be through material objects, the bottom line is
that the bricoleur works with signs.

A fascinating example of bricolage can be found in outback Australia, in
the form of the indigenous bush mechanic, who because of geographical iso¬
lation (and also economic marginalisation) is unable to use professional help
to fix their motor vehicle. They respond by ingeniously using various bits
and pieces from the surrounding bush (wilderness) as substitutes for vehi¬
cle parts: replacing brake pads with pieces of wood, using branches as sub¬
stitute drive shafts, affixing boomerangs as clutch plates, using old shirts as
makeshift windscreen wipers. We can observe that rather than being
restricted by the fixed, artefactual nature of the objects at hand, the bricoleur
transcends such restrictions by regarding the object as fluid or malleable.
As Levi-Strauss puts it, the bricoleur does not directly link tasks to the

The Object as Symbolic Code

67

availability of particular raw materials, for the bricoleur's means are not
related to a certain order of projects (1966[1962j: 19). The bricoleur makes do,
collecting and using objects in a variety of possible combinations. These
combinations do not come from 'nowhere', nor are they conjured up on the
spot: they are drawn from already existing linguistic structures. Objects can
thus be arranged in a variety of combinations, but are derived from lan¬
guage structures that already exist. The bricoleur thus deploys particular
practico-theoretical logics to enable systems of transformations, meaning
objects can have fluid meanings within systems of classification and exchange.
The bricoleur therefore does not merely speak with things, but speaks through
the medium of things (Levi-Strauss, 1966[1962]: 21).

In his study Totemism, Levi-Strauss (1962) applies this principle that
things are mediums in generating cultural understandings in order to grasp
how systems of human meaning are attached to animals, celestial bodies
and other natural phenomena (1966[1962j: 135). Working from the insights
of the anthropologist Boas, Levi-Strauss argues that totemistic beliefs do not
constitute a unique or isolated practice of classification, but rather are a
practice best understood within a general field of relations between
humans and natural objects. So, totemism has nothing to do with classify¬
ing nature or people per se - rather it is centrally connected to the logical
order of culture and civilisation. The totem object thus becomes a medium
through which cultural myths explain facts, rather than being something
which myths must account for (1966[1962j: 95).

Totemism is a cultural attempt to understand the world and its sys¬
temic organisation. It involves classifications of phenomena into their
cultural place. This means that plants and animals must be treated as ele¬
ments of a type of cultural message system, the signs and signatures of
which (the 'logics') are not only discovered, but ordered, by human activ¬
ity. The ends these objects are put to are not merely technical or utilitarian
in any simple way, but are part of the cultural grammar. As Levi-Strauss
famously points out in a brief, yet widely quoted and instructive, section
toward the end of his book Totemism (1962: 162) 'natural species are not
chosen because they are "good to eat" but because they are "good to
think"' (' bonnes d penser’). From this insight, we can conclude that a fun¬
damental tenet of Levi-Strauss' theoretical model is that material objects
do not exist just to serve straightforward, utilitarian purposes. In fact, the
more important, symbolic role of objects is to allow humans to construct
and assign meanings within their cultural universe. Such a proposition is
a - possibly the - bedrock assumption within material culture studies.

Barthes: exposing the ideological basis of bourgeois
commodity symbols

An intriguing problem is whether the principle proposed by Levi-Strauss
that humans use objects to construct and assign meanings within their

68

Theoretical Approaches

universe - developed through anthropological inquiry in non-western
societies - still holds within advanced consumer societies where there is a
surfeit of commodities, many seemingly meaningless or of little personal
and cultural value. In this section we go on to consider a key author who
dealt with this question through the application of a structural approach:
Roland Barthes. The work of French semiotician Roland Barthes is impor¬
tant because he was the first to systematically consider the symbolic
meaning of material culture within advanced consumer societies. Barthes'
work on commodities is an exciting fusion of the structuralist programme
of Saussure and Levi-Strauss, with the critical power of Marxism. His
work offered a new and compelling way of interpreting the proliferation
of commodity objects within advanced societies of the twentieth century.
My assessment, however, is that in emphasising the mythical meanings
of goods, his theoretical position is ultimately unable to account for the
highly charged personal meanings they offer to consumers, and therefore
offers a partial theoretical scheme for understanding material culture.

In the preface to the 1970 edition of his key work Mythologies (1993[1957j),
Barthes elaborates two key aims of the book, and his semiotic approach
more broadly. The first is to make an ideological critique of mass culture.
This critique was to concentrate on certain mythologies within mass
culture, but its key was Barthes' focus on the commodity object. Barthes
believed very strongly that the mythic quality of bourgeois culture could
best be investigated by focusing on particular objects. Objects thus have a
very powerful story to tell, offering an investigative path for an analyst (or
in Barthes' terms a 'mythologist') to elucidate the widespread ideological
myths of bourgeois culture. The commodity object was perfect for such an
analytic move because it appeared natural, transparent and, seemingly, it
just magically 'exists'. Yet - and we can see the affinities of this line of rea¬
soning with Marx's dissection of the commodity outlined in the previous
chapter - the commodity object was thoroughly rooted in the ideological
basis of capitalism. It was capitalist mythology objectified, but cleverly dis¬
guised to consumers as a thing to impart any number of desirable traits
such as emancipation, romance, potency or elegance. In making such a sug¬
gestion about the social and psychological capacities of commodities,
Barthes clearly went well beyond the very technical - though impassioned -
Marxian analysis of the commodity.

The second key aim of Mythologies was to realise Saussure's ambition of
a science of semiology that moved beyond a narrowly conceived linguis¬
tics, by applying semiological analysis to uncover the 'language' of the
ideological system of capitalism. Taking inspiration from Saussure's writ¬
ings, Barthes advocated that one could best understand this ideological
system by analysing it as a system of signs, with the commodity as a
prime 'carrier' of such ideologies. Barthes believed that Saussure's rigor¬
ous structuralist methodology has the capacity to unmask and show the
linguistic workings of the commodity-based ideological system, and -
through the idea of 'myth' - to reveal how their basis in bourgeois culture

The Object as Symbolic Code

69

becomes transformed into 'nature', as something that appears as natural,
untouched by human influence. The ultimate goal of the work is summed
up by Barthes in the word he uses to express his twin tasks of: (i) icono-
clastically uncovering and denunciating bourgeois norms and (ii) apply¬
ing the rigorous scientific, structural approach of Saussure. The neologism
Barthes uses to combine these two ambitions is telling of his approach:
'semioclasm' (1993[1957j: 9).

What motivated Barthes' work in Mythologies was the goal of revealing
the ideological basis of contemporary bourgeois culture. Barthes recog¬
nised this ideological system as being shaped by the false promises of
consumerist objects. Newspapers, art, everyday or common sense beliefs,
films, advertisements, consumer objects - all 'dress up' reality by giving
it a glossy appearance that imitated something natural and transparent
but was, in Barthes' view, clearly false, deceptive and implicitly ideologi¬
cal. Rather than the everyday, common sense order of things being nat¬
ural, such relations hid ideological interests, primarily capitalist interests.
Barthes reiterates that what he is trying to do is to uncover the 'natural'
and show it to be intrinsically, deeply 'historical' - inextricably shaped by
the forces of capitalism:

I resented seeing Nature and History confused at every turn, and I wanted to

track down, in the decorative display of what-goes-without-saying, the ideo¬
logical abuse which, in my view, is hidden there. (Barthes, 1993(1957]: 11)

Barthes' idea was that capitalism works to deceive subjects through prop¬
agating myths, which are embodied within a multitude of everyday
objects and experiences, from motor vehicles, to white goods, implements
like cricket or baseball bats, to shoes and clothing. What exactly, in
Barthes' terms, was a 'myth'? Barthes initially indicates that myth is a
type of speech, which acts to mislead and obfuscate. As Culler represents
it: 'myth means a delusion to be exposed' (Culler, 1983: 33). Barthes then
clarifies his meaning by pointing out that myth is a system of communi¬
cation, or message. It is thus more than merely a physical object, but is a
mode of signification that is attached to objects (Barthes, 1993[1957]: 109).
Myth thus adds a certain patina to objects, endowing them with special
qualities and abilities: consider mythical objects like the bats of legendary
sportspeople such as baseball star Joe Di Maggio or cricketer Don
Bradman, the guitar of Hendrix or the trumpet of Miles Davis, the boxing
gloves of Ali, the iconic white jump suit of late Presley, or a dress once
worn by Monroe. Myth thus equals pure matter, plus ideology. Barthes
identified myth as a second-order semiological system (1993[1957j: 114).
The first order within any semiological system is language, and the sec¬
ond higher level is mythology, which functions like a meta-language by
informing our interpretations of what might otherwise be considered a
mundane object. Barthes calls mythology a form of 'depoliticised speech',
because of the ability of myth to banish history - to do away with the

70

Theoretical Approaches

material dialectics of the production of consumer objects, and so
transform history into nature (1993 [1957]: 142). Much like the classic
Marxist analysis of the commodity, Barthes argues that commodity
objects appear to have a blissful clarity and simplicity Yet, if we scratch
below the surface using the structuralist tools of the mythologist, we can
identify that they merely disguise the brutal and exploitative context of
their production by deploying the veil of certain mythologies. Objects
within consumer societies are always political, it is just that the political
intensity of objects fades once myth is attached to them:

In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the
complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does
away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately vis¬
ible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions because it is without
depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes a bliss¬
ful clarity: things appear to mean something by themselves. (Barthes,

1 993[1 957]: 143)

There are two well-known works by Barthes which collect a series of short
essays on various cultural myths: Mythologies (1993[1957]) and The Eiffel
Tower and Other Mythologies (1979). Both collect popular essays in cultural
criticism published in various forums in France, and illustrate the type of
analysis Barthes had in mind for his critical semiotics. In these works,
Barthes analyses a massive range of cultural objects, including images,
texts, art, urban settings, commercial settings, events, sports, foods, books
and more. To understand his methodology it is worthwhile looking at
some examples of Barthes' analysis of the myths he sees embodied in
diverse items of material culture.

The new Citroen

The first point Barthes makes is a more general one about motor vehicles,
though clearly he has the new Citroen, model DS19 (referring to its 1.9 litre
engine) in mind, when he says that: 'cars today are almost the exact equiv¬
alent of the great Gothic cathedrals' (1993[1957]: 88). By this he means that
industrial commodity production has substituted commodities as the new
things to worship. Not coincidentally, the 'DS' is short for 'Deesse', mean¬
ing Goddess in French. The model was first seen by Parisians at the 1955
Paris Motor Show. The DS is widely known amongst car enthusiasts and
Francophiles, and frequently highly regarded for its novel, hydropneumatic
suspension and its aerodynamic design, supposedly providing hitherto
unknown levels of comfort without sacrificing performance. Barthes writes
that the Citroen is a type of superlative object, something that appears to us
as if it has magically fallen from the heavens. He adds that the DS19 is a per¬
fected mass produced object that sits above nature because it combines a
perfection of human input (design, finish, quality, shape, scale) with an
apparent genuine absence of human input.

The Object as Symbolic Code

71

Barthes argues that a key aesthetic attraction of the DS19 is its apparent
smoothness and roundedness. The car doesn't look as if it has been
assembled through brute forces of industrial production. In fact, it sug¬
gests a feeling of lightness, speed and elegance rather than aggression.
The sweeping curves of glass at the front and rear of the DS19 add to this
feeling of light, air and space. Barthes sees this novel design as marking a
shift: from industrial objects that betray their dirty and brutish production
methods, to objects that are inviting and spiritual, now more attuned to
new philosophies of post Second World War household luxury goods.
The car now becomes an extension of comfortable domestic space. Here,
Barthes may have picked up on an early trend toward extending the home
and domestic technologies of comfort into other domains of life. Cue the
contemporary fad for incorporating things such as cup holders, flower
vases, DVD players, power outlets, and small refrigerators into motor
vehicles. What is the ultimate conclusion to Barthes' analysis of the new
Citroen? He posits a type of psychoanalytic analysis, suggesting that the
car becomes an object of intense, amorous desire which displaces sexual
urges: through the senses of sight and touch this technological object is
appropriated and ultimately prostituted to serve people's desires.

After reading Barthes' essay on the Citroen, one is provoked to ask: what
might be the current equivalent of the DS19? Well, this is a question for your
private consideration and a matter determined by your own tastes, but a few
suggestions are: a BMW 7 Series motor vehicle, an Apple iPod, a pair of
Manolo Blahnik shoes, a Tiffany bracelet, an Eames chair. In their own way,
each of these could be seen as a current embodiment of Barthes' Citroen
DS19. No doubt, each reader could add their own 'DS19' to this list.

Toys

In this essay Barthes seems intent on reminding us that a child's toy is not an
object of innocence, mere fantasy or play. Rather, toys encode various ideolo¬
gies of the modem adult world. First, Barthes points out that toys - as minia¬
tures of the adult world, allow us to objectify children as a unique self who is
able to act autonomously in the world. Because toys commonly reproduce
copies of the adult world in reduced form, they allow adults to identify chil¬
dren as 'small adults' who need to leam skills and attitudes, which toys can
introduce. In doing so, toys serve an ideological purpose by embodying the
myths and ideologies of the modem world, whether it be myths of war, trans¬
port, science, or fashion and hairstyles. One might think here of the debates
about what constitute appropriate toys for children: is playing with a Barbie
doll advisable for young girls? Should young boys play with toys that have
strongly, stereotypically masculine codes, like toy soldiers, guns and swords?
Barthes argues that toys also allow users to begin to identify themselves as
objective actors in the world: 'owners', 'users' and 'doers', rather than cre¬
ators. In doing so - and especially if the toys are made of plastic - they assist
in creating a relation with the world that is disengaged from nature.

72

Theoretical Approaches

Plastic

This is an interesting essay, because Barthes doesn't focus on any particu¬
lar object or class of objects, but rather on a class of material that was
becoming ubiquitous in the era he was writing: plastic. Again emphasis¬
ing the enchantedness of an object, Barthes states that plastic 'is the first
magical substance which consents to be prosaic' (1993[1957j: 98). Plastic is
spectacular not so much in its manifestation in any particular amazing
object, but through its ubiquity and in the sheer range of its end products:
'it can become buckets as well as jewels' (1993[1957j: 97). Barthes suggests
our amazement at plastic is at the sight of the way it proliferates within
our mundane existence. Barthes puts it this way: plastic has a singular ori¬
gin, but plural effects. Because of this, plastic becomes a ubiquitous mate¬
rial representing to us a triumph of modern production.

Yet, in typical Barthesian myth debunking mode, there must be a down¬
side to plastic - a tragic counter code that Barthes identifies which allows
us to see behind the myth of plastic to identify what plastic truly repre¬
sents. Here, Barthes says that despite the magic of plastic - its durability
and sturdiness - the price we pay is to be found in the way plastic
becomes a cold, alienating material whose primary virtue is (mere) resis¬
tance. Hardly the stuff of an heroic, beautiful material like gold! The ulti¬
mate tragedy with plastic is that in becoming ubiquitous, it virtually
abolishes hierarchies of substances. With plastic, Barthes suggests, we no
longer need silver, gold, aluminium or zinc: 'the whole world can be plas¬
ticized' ([1993]1957: 98).

Given Barthes' analysis, we may want to ask a few questions in response.
First, is it possible to use plastic to build high status objects which betray
the status of plastic as a common, popular material used for mass produc¬
tion? One example of this is to be found within furniture and design,
where plasticised forms can be highly valued. Second, one might suggest
that given the whole world was becoming 'plasticised' as Barthes sug¬
gested, would there not arise counter discourses that devalued plastic in
favour of higher status materials like woods? A good example is to be
found in the production of luxury motor vehicles, which frequently have
wood panelling liberally splashed on their dashes and fittings to give
their interiors a feeling of warmth and quality. Ironically - at the lower
end of the luxury market and in some motor vehicle brands attempting to
suggest status - plastic material is produced in such a way as to imitate
walnut wood panelling. This is indeed something Barthes would have
enjoyed analysing.

The Eiffel Tower

In this piece, Barthes deploys a narrative device he uses frequently in the
essays on mythologies: the ubiquity of an object and the paradox of its
mythical quality. Put differently, he asks how an object can be so mun¬
dane, yet so culturally powerful? He adopts this analytic mode in his

The Object as Symbolic Code

73

essay on the Parisian icon, the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower is 'there',
Barthes argues (1979: 3). It has a 'factness' that is incontestable and hence
entirely mundane: Tike a rock or the river, it is as literal as a phenomenon
of nature whose meaning can be questioned to infinity but whose exis¬
tence is incontestable' (1979: 3). Barthes points out that the Eiffel Tower
iconic status is acquired on a number of levels. The Tower functions as a
symbol for Parisians: allowing them to orient themselves within the city,
and to have a collective gaze upon it. For those within the metropolis, it
is a centre. For the world, the Eiffel Tower is a universal symbol of travel,
reproduced in thousands of tourist photographs which are taken home to
relatives who may marvel at the towering structure which constitutes the
symbolic centre of Paris. Barthes also states that the tower is a universal
symbol of modernity, communication, science and cosmopolitan travel.
For Barthes, what is paradoxical and somewhat farcical here - but in the
end crucial for the Tower's signifying capacity - is that the Tower itself is
a useless structure. As he says, it is nothing, a 'zero monument' (1979: 7)
and can ultimately live on itself. Its utter lack of function is in inverse pro¬
portion to its capacity to act as a lightning rod for infinite mythological
meanings. As an 'empty signifier', the Tower is all the more open to
attract meanings.

Baudrillard’s structural analysis of consumer objects

In his early career writings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baudrillard
was essentially trying to come to grips with the burgeoning consumer soci¬
ety of the time and whether Marxism could offer a viable framework for
understanding a society where consumer objects proliferate in exceptional
abundance. Inspired by the structuralist vision of Levi-Strauss and the
antecedent grand ambitions of Saussure's linguistic model, Barthes on the
mythologies embodied in everyday objects, and also (in a less direct way)
the critical theorist's writings on commodification, Baudrillard's first two
books (The System of Objects, 1996[1968], and The Consumer Society,
1998[1970]) dealt squarely with important questions related to consump¬
tion, material culture and the broader cultures of consumption that were
beginning to characterise western cultures in the latter half of the twenti¬
eth century. Despite what we may know, or think, about Baudrillard's
recent writing, these are singular works in his oeuvre. As Rex Butler (1999:
5) points out, these books and the couple that followed them, were directly
sociological in nature: 'observational, empirical, scientific', compared to
those which Baudrillard published post-1977. They are of significant inter¬
est to those who study material culture, and at turns are accessible and
complex, brilliant and foggy. Reading them can be a confusing journey of
reconciling Marxism and critical theory, structural semiotics and psycho¬
analysis. Nevertheless, because Baudrillard tries to come to grips with the
special problems associated with abundance, excess, signification and

74

Theoretical Approaches

structure, these works constitute some of the most interesting and valuable
studies of material culture within consumer societies.

Let's look at what Baudrillard has to say about material culture.
Baudrillard's goal in these early works is to develop a systematic study of
consumption (perhaps we could go so far as to call it a 'sociology of con¬
sumption') that is not so much consumer-centred, but object-centred.
Consistent with the structuralist ambition, Baudrillard is attempting to
undertake an analysis of the 'architecture' of contemporary material
culture: that is, how it fits together into an overarching structure of mean¬
ings and codes. The downside of this resolute structuralism is that
Baudrillard's analysis is relatively agentless, in the sense that he ignores
the discourses and practices of actors. Yet, Baudrillard's approach is con¬
sistent with one of the central tenets in material culture studies: to study
the objects themselves.

Baudrillard's analysis of objects combines a powerful structuralist tech¬
nique with an updated version of critical theory. His goal is ambitious in
the best Levi-Straussian tradition: it is no less than to incorporate objects
into a general theory of communicative behaviour. At the base of his analy¬
sis, Baudrillard is determined to take consumption seriously. Rather than
consider consumption autonomously, as a site where individual needs are
pursued and gratified, Baudrillard asserts that consumption must be con¬
sidered an important social institution where social forces such as class,
status and prestige are measured and played out. As such, his work is an
important precursor to the postmodern writings of the 1980s and 1990s on
consumption, and can be seen as a (somewhat eccentric) companion text
to Bourdieu's Distinction. Dual principles drive Baudrillard's analysis: (i) a
focus on objects as the irreducible elements of the act of consumption, and
(ii) a commitment to conceptualising objects as having symbolic value,
rather than a use value or exchange value. In terms of Baudrillard's first
axiom, his goal is consistent with developing a strong programme in mate¬
rial culture studies: objects should be identified in terms of their place
in the 'general structure of social behaviour' (1981: 35). An adequate the¬
ory of objects is important in sociology, though to date, notes Baudrillard,
they have only had a 'walk-on role in sociological research' (1981: 34).
Moreover, the sociological concern with identifying objects as indices of
social membership is merely a preliminary task, much more vital is to con¬
sider objects as the scaffolding for a global structure of the environment
(1981: 35). His major concern then is with the processes that exist between
people and objects, and the systems of behaviour and relationships that
result from them. Echoing a robustly cultural sentiment in the tradition of
Levi-Strauss, he asserts that objects are all in perpetual flight from techni¬
cal structure towards their secondary meanings, from the technological
system towards a cultural system (Baudrillard, 1996[1968]: 8).

Baudrillard's second axiom is that all objects should be studied in terms
of their sign value, rather than their use or exchange value. Objects may

The Object as Symbolic Code

75

well have a pragmatic, utilitarian component - that which Baudrillard
dismisses somewhat freely as an 'empiricist hypothesis' - but this is little
more than a practical 'guarantee' of lesser interest (1981: 29). What is far
more important is the symbolic value of objects. Baudrillard writes:
'objects never exhaust themselves in the functions they serve' (1981: 32),
meaning that, above all else, objects serve as symbolic markers of class,
status and prestige. So, we can begin to see how Baudrillard comes to give
Marxism a consumption orientation. In fact, in contrast to other Marxist
interpretations, Baudrillard makes the radical proposal that it is only
through studying the opposite of production that we can understand con¬
temporary capitalism. So, he says, an accurate theory of objects must take
into account social 'prestations' (meaning symbolic displays of status and
prestige) and social signification: objects as signifiers have a significant
role to play in reproducing relations of social power. To consume an object
is to engage with a system of cultural signs: 'the fundamental conceptual
hypothesis for a sociological analysis of "consumption" in not use value,
the relation to needs, but symbolic exchange value, the value of social
prestation, of rivalry and, at the limit, of class discriminants' (Baudrillard,
1981: 30). These are strong sentiments, but herein lies the seed of
Baudrillard's eventual departure from these more sociological early writ¬
ings. In staunchly emphasising the sign values of objects within cultural
systems of prestige and display, Baudrillard laid his analysis open to sub¬
stantial revision in the wake of emergent poststructural critiques which
would come to radically break the relationship between sign and signifier,
which Baudrillard's model was seemingly based upon.

In The System of Objects (1996[1968j) Baudrillard identifies the modem
consumer citizen as someone who plays with signs as an integral part of
their identity. There is no greater evidence of this than within the domain
of interior design, he suggests, wherein modem objects have undergone a
process of 'liberalization'. No longer required to symbolically service the
requirements of moral constraints, such as for example, proper familial
lineage, religious and moral uprightness, or dedicated cultural learning,
the domestic setting is free to represent the whims of its inhabitants: 'the
substance and form of the old furniture have been abandoned for good,
in favour of an extremely free game of function' (1996[1968j: 21). Modern
living spaces, and the objects that sit within them, are problematic not
for their moral quotient, but for questions of desired ambience, design
and atmosphere: for example, coolness, warmth, colour, spontaneity,
order (1996[1968j: 30). Baudrillard highlights glass as a modern decor par
excellence, for its coolness, transparency, lightness, freedom and affor-
dance of an uninterrupted view. The larger meaning of this engagement
with objects and materials, Baudrillard argues, is that the modern home-
owner has become a type of symbolic technician - one who dominates,
controls and orders objects. Consumption then is about weaving objects
into a coherent signifying fabric:

76

Theoretical Approaches

consumption is the virtual totality of all objects and messages ready-
constituted as a more or less coherent discourse. If it has any meaning at all,
consumption means an activity consisting of the systematic manipulation of
signs. (Baudrillard, 1 996[1 968]: 200)

Baudrillard calls his theory of material culture, a theory of 'object signs'.
Reworking the Saussurian model of langue and parole to show how every
object of consumption must be seen as part of a larger system of object
language, Baudrillard argues that consumption is defined by its status
as a system of exchange, difference and signification: 'the generalized
exchange of signs' (1981: 87). Baudrillard develops a four-stage historical
model to show the evolution toward the contemporary logic of sign value.
His four stages are as follows:

1 The logic of utility, labelled its ‘functional logic'. This refers to the capac¬
ity of an object to perform a functional need. It is equivalent to Marx's
notion of use-value. For example, the purpose of a biro is for writing,
a motor vehicle is 'to get from point A to point B', a cup is to hold liq¬
uid, or a chair is for supporting one's body in an upright position.

2 The logic of the market, labelled its 'exchange value’. This refers to the
capacity of an object to measure value. Thus, a biro may be roughly equiv¬
alent in value to an orange, a computer equal to the whole of a month's
salary, and an ounce of gold can be exchanged for a number of hundred
US dollars. In a market economy, barter is a relatively marginal activity,
as we use money as a means of measuring universal value.

3 The logic of the gift, labelled its ‘symbolic exchange value’. This refers to the
value of an object in relation to a subject. For example, a diamond ring is
a gift given to symbolise love and commitment toward another, a bunch
of red roses may be given to another to symbolise romantic feelings, and
a bottle of champagne given to signal success or congratulations.

4 The logic of status, labelled its ‘sign value'. Value here is symbolic and,
because of this, intrinsically relational. This means that a particular
object has value only in relation to other objects, which are used as
points of comparison. For example, a Mercedes might be roughly
equivalent in status value to a BMW of the same size, but each have a
higher status than a Chrysler, Honda and Hyundai. Writing with a
Mont Blanc pen might signify success - or one's aspiration for success -
and will likely have higher status than a generic biro. Having a signed,
limited edition of an art print will have higher status than a poster. A
Rolex watch is likely to be perceived as having higher status than a
Seiko. As a challenge to Baudrillard's position, it is worth noting that
this type of hierarchical logic of status value has to some degree been
challenged by cultural practices including the growing deployment of
irony in judging cultural goods, the growing popularity of kitsch, and
the embracing of punk and trash cultures. This makes it possible that
in some circles what was once thought to be cheap, lowbrow or trashy
could have the highest symbolic value.

The Object as Symbolic Code

77

The works by Baudrillard discussed here are generally taken to be his
most concrete, empirical and straightforwardly sociological. They are
substantial intellectual labours of quite a traditional nature. What fol¬
lowed were periods of work devoted to simulation and the hyperreal, a
series of auto-biographical reflections including the postmodern travel¬
ogue America, as well as a series of works on popular political and cultural
topics like the Gulf War and the iconography of Princess Diana. In these
works, the analytic and political purchase of Baudrillard's early works is
replaced by a sort of resigned flattening out of critical consciousness. As
Bryan Turner points out, Baudrillard's writing 'simulates the condition it
wishes to convey rather than producing a critical style in opposition to
postmodern culture' (1993: 85). While this air of acquiescence may be
characteristic of Baudrillard's later works, it is not the case for those
referred to here. For Marxists, Baudrillard's writing - even the intellectu¬
ally disciplined early works - represent a failure to offer a compelling
development of contemporary Marxism. Moreover, he is often served
with rendering social agents politically impotent. For more inclusive soci¬
ologists who are likely to embrace some of the innovations coming from
continental theory and cultural studies, Baudrillard's work is provocative,
suggestive and valuable. How far one wishes to travel with him into the
self-referential world of simulations and simulacrum seems to be the most
important question one needs to consider.

Hebdige and the codes of sub-cultural fashions

One of the strong principles in the structural approach to objects empha¬
sises coherence, relationality and semiotic order. The corollary of this
principle is that any individual object obtains its capacity to signify
through its relational difference to other objects within a broader discur¬
sive field. Objects, as Levi-Strauss says, have places. One way of knowing
their place is recognising when they are out of place, when the semiotic
order is breached. Being 'out of place' - consequently disturbing semiotic
coherence and the 'natural order' of things - thus gives an object cultural
power. Hebdige's (1979) analysis of the meanings of youth sub-cultural
style illustrates this central premise of culture most vividly.

In this analysis Hebdige addresses two questions. First, how is sense¬
making within sub-cultural groups enabled through various types of sig-
nifiers, for example, dress, self-presentation, musical preferences and
various other accoutrements. Second, how can sub-cultures (particularly
punk) cohere around a central belief in 'disorder'? Hebdige pinpoints
'style' as a type of cultural weaponry of sub-cultural groups - conceptu¬
alising it is a technique of 'intentional communication' that functions for
both members within the group, and for those in the general mass of
'straight' or conventional culture. 'Sub-cultural style' refers to the bundle
of features that comprise one's self-presentation. For the sub-cultural
groups Hebdige considered - principally youth sub-cultures centred around

78

Theoretical Approaches

music and fashion - style is an 'emphatic combination' of dress, dance,
argot, musical preference, hair colour and style, and accoutrements like
hair combs, bracelets, earrings or watch chains. Hebdige asserts that the
key to understanding sub-cultural style is that it is intentionally, con¬
sciously constructed, in contrast to conventional style which he sees as less
consciously constructed. Punk style, for example, is assembled according
to principles of drama and spectacle. 'Straight' or mass style is seen as
drawing upon contrasting cultural codes and practices. In this sense,
it too is a type of intentional communication, but the communicative
intent is to be 'appropriate', 'modest' and to 'fit in'. Dominant cultural
discourses encourage us to identify straight or conventional style not so
much in terms of a particular assemblage of ideological codes and sym¬
bols, but as something that is entirely natural and without 'history' in
Barthes' sense - something that is without ideology. This view of straight
style as the 'natural' way of presenting self is, of course, plainly wrong.

The power of sub-cultural communication comes from its ability to
strategically draw upon the symbolic grammar of 'straight' style and to
subvert it through various subtle, and not so subtle, ways. Hebdige fol¬
lows a Saussurian line of reasoning here and also injects his own interest
in cultural power and social stratification, to suggest that any ensemble
has its place within an internal system of differences, and each sub¬
cultural variation must position itself in relation to 'conventional' modes of
sartorial discourse. He argues that spectacular sub-cultures have a visual
ensemble that is obviously fabricated, so that symbolic power is accumu¬
lated through consciously using and abusing the conventional rules of self¬
presentation. In this sense, spectacular sub-cultures go against nature by
rendering 'the world of objects to new and covertly oppositional readings'
(1979: 102). Applying Levi-Strauss' idea of the bricolenr, who is seen to
continually alter and extend the meanings of objects through a process
called 'systems of transformation', Hebdige suggests that the members of
sub-cultures are a type of bricoleur who transforms the meaning of objects
by recontextualising them. Here, we can see affinities with important
early twentieth-century art movements, including dada and surrealism.
Artists such as Duchamp, Dali, Breton and Ernst played around with
objects and their appropriate cultural places by de and re-contextualising
everyday objects to twist their meanings. Duchamp for example pre¬
sented a bicycle wheel, a signed urinal, a snow shovel, a bottlerack and a
side table as art. The important question one is prompted to ask is, is this
art? Moreover, what makes art, one may ask, apart from a theory of inter¬
pretation to define it? Drawing upon the work of Saussure and Levi-
Strauss, the semiotician can explain why Duchamp's readymade
sculpture of found objects might have been considered so culturally
provocative.

The data for Hebdige's analysis comes from a close reading of the mate¬
rials deployed by various youth sub-cultures, principally from Britain in
the 1960s and 1970s. His discussion of Mods and - especially - Punks

The Object as Symbolic Code

79

have great illustrative value in understanding semiotic approaches to
material culture. The Mods (also see Cohen's (1972) book Folk Devils and
Moral Panics) appropriated commodities by placing them in a symbolic
ensemble which served to erase or alter their original, 'straight' meaning.
The motor scooter is a great example discussed by Hebdige. The scooter
was originally a benign response to inner city transport needs of the
young and the working class, but was turned into 'a menacing symbol of
group solidarity' by the Mods (Hebdige, 1979: 104) who customised and
fetishised their machines with various decorations and enhancements,
often riding in packs to enhance the apparent 'menace quotient' of what
is otherwise a low-powered - though economically and environmentally
rational - runabout. Mods also appropriated the conventional insignia of
the middle-class business world, such as suits, collared shirts, ties and
short hair, but stripped them of their meaning, transforming them into
empty fetishes: 'objects to be desired, fondled and valued in their own
right' (1979: 105). It is ironic that in some markets around the world, the
brands that Mods valued are now undergoing their own transformation.
A great example of this is of two brands of shirts: Fred Perry and Ben
Sherman. Both are 'old school' London Mod attire that were extensively
worn by Mods in the 1960s to the extent that they became an iconic part
of their wardrobe. These days, both brands remain popular with Mods,
but both brands have also expanded into mainstream markets. The
dilemma is: how can the 'old school' interpretation of the Mods be recon¬
ciled with extension of the brand in to new, mainstream markets? This is
something of a problem for the brands (who wish to retain loyalty from
old customers while generating new markets), and the fans of the brand
(who wish to hang onto emotional attachments to old brand certainties).
Part of the solution seems to be that shirt production is differentiated
according to different markets: unique shapes (the original design is a
tighter fitting 'slim fit' style, compared to the recently produced shirt), a
range of colours and patterns (the newer ones appealing to mainstream
tastes with conventional checks or stripes). For some consumers, such a
change in production may cause the brand to lose its aura.

It is within punk sub-culture that the 'collage aesthetic' is most clearly
identified. Hebdige shows how the punk aesthetic disrupts meanings
through re-appropriating and reorganising meanings. Hebdige describes
how this is carried out through the use of 'cut ups'. This process allows
the most mundane and unremarkable objects to take on a forceful new
meaning through recontextualisahon which relied upon rupturing 'natural'
contexts with 'constructed' contexts. Just as the coherent 'naturalness' of
conventional dress standards (termed their 'homological coherence')
afforded symbolic authority, the punk style accrued power through
expressing its complete opposites so that 'the perverse and the abnormal
were valued intrinsically' (Hebdige, 1979: 107). Some of the binary oppo¬
sites that punk promoted over conventional style are summarised below,
beginning with Hebdige's 'master' discourse.

80

Theoretical Approaches

natural - constructed

conventional - unconventional

sexually respectable - sexually deviant

appropriate - out of context

refined - garish

quiet - loud

soft - sharp

good taste - kitsch/inappropriate

professional - amateur

harmony - cacophony

order - chaos

The binary codes of punk style (after Hebdige, 1979)

Evaluating the structural approach to material culture

Before proceeding to evaluate the structural perspective, consider the fol¬
lowing recap of the general features of the structural and semiotic account
of material culture:

• The fundamental principle of the structural approach to material cul¬
ture is that any object derives its meaning from a semiotic relation to
another object. That is, objects have meanings that are relational and
contextualised. Saussure's groundbreaking work in structural linguistics
established this. So, we can understand the meaning of an object by
reading it in relation to its difference from other objects, of the same or
different class. For example, a Ford motor vehicle is distinguishable
from other motor vehicles (Flonda, BMW, Chrysler) in terms of size,
shape, quality, brand association and so on. The point is that we only
know what a 'Ford' motor vehicle is because of how we perceive its dif¬
ferences in relation to other motor vehicle types.

• The structural tradition recommends that analysts focus on studying
the langue plane of material culture, rather than its parole plane. This
recommendation is drawn from Saussure's distinction between the
surface of language (parole) and its deep, generative structure (langue).
The point structuralists make is that only by studying these langue ele¬
ments can we begin to understand the generative forces of culture.

• Structuralism has its origins in Saussure's theory of structural linguis¬
tics but, as Saussure noted, other aspects of culture have 'language-
like' qualities in the sense that they have their own internal, systemic
structure associated with codes, narratives and symbols. Thus, any
aspect of culture, or social life broadly, can be studied along these lines
in terms of their systemic associations: food, clothing, alcoholic drinks,
the built environment and so on. Levi-Strauss, who wrote on the prac¬
tice of bricolage and objects as 'resources for thinking', was a forceful

The Object as Symbolic Code

81

advocate of this principle. In the context of consumer cultures this idea
was developed first, and possibly best, by Roland Barthes in his
influential work Mythologies (1993[1957j).

To what extent does structuralism and semiotics offer a viable set of the¬
oretical resources for understanding material culture? The following
arguments can be made in favour of such theoretical models.

• The key strength of this approach is that it offers what has been
labelled a 'strong' or 'autonomous' approach to studying culture
(Alexander, 2003). That is, in seeking to dissect the codes and symbols
that inform our everyday interpretations and actions, the approach
need not rely on materialist, economic or other extraneous factors in
explaining the practices and processes of culture. Rather, culture is
something thoroughly shot through all aspects of daily life whether
they be related to inequality, family life, relationships, fashion or edu¬
cational learning. All aspects of our lives owe something to systems of
culture. In offering us resources to understand this in the form of nar¬
ratives, codes and symbols - which can be conceptualised unhinged
from 'last instance' materialist arguments, or 'bottom line' contingen¬
cies of class or gender - the structuralist intellectual toolkit is a rich one.
It does not suggest that there are no inequalities or social differences,
only that we can fully understand such dimensions when we uncover
the cultural codes and processes that inform them.

• A corollary of this point is that semiotics offers cultural researchers a
type of methodological and conceptual toolkit for analysing diverse
aspects of culture. In its latter form, the strength of the approach is to
be found in the way elements of understanding ('hermeneutics') are
forged with elements of cultural structure, so that the analyst can move
between questions of meaning and structure.

The following arguments are commonly used criticisms of the semiotic,
structural approach:

• The major potential flaw of the structural approach, especially in its
more pure form as advocated by Saussure, Levi-Strauss and Barthes,
is that questions of actors and their agency are not considered. So, we
may appreciate the interpretations of authors like Levi-Strauss and
Barthes who are masterly writers on culture and cultural things, how¬
ever, in the end - to some degree - we must trust their interpretations,
which are often unqualified by actors' own accounts or interpreta¬
tions. For example, Barthes tells us that people regard the Citroen as a
contemporary gothic cathedral and that it is the ultimate symbol of
advancement for the petit bourgeois class. From a social scientific per¬
spective, this may be regarded in its most positive light as a plausible

82

Theoretical Approaches

(though somewhat bold) hypothesis, or, in its worst light, as fanciful
literary speculation. Likewise, what do iconic architectural structures
like the Eiffel Tower which Barthes wrote about, or for that matter the
Golden Gate Bridge, or the Sydney Opera House, really mean to peo¬
ple? In some versions of cultural studies such theorising, unhinged
from reality and from the voices and minds of actors, can reach its
most fanciful and unproductive heights. Such heretical questioning of
virtuoso readings of sites and objects by celebrated scholars may be
regarded as theoretically mean-spirited by some. To a certain extent
we need imaginative analysts like Barthes to offer interpretations of
these symbols, but in the end we also need to ask whether there is any
empirical basis for the claims they make. Here, classic middle-level
sociological approaches, which take regard of strong theoretical claims
(such as that proposed by Barthes) but temper and modify them as
required through nuanced empirical approaches, have an important
role to play.

• An allied criticism of this approach is that in emphasising the textual
and linguistic properties of social life, real actors and the hard social
strains that hinder them in social life are relatively under-theorised,
possibly even ignored. So, this criticism could be summarised by the
slogan 'the world is not a text'. The counter point here is that, yes the
world is not a text, but it has textual qualities: talk and discourse, nar¬
rative, expressivity and emotion are important aspects of social life.
Moreover, these textual qualities - expressed through the codes, narra¬
tives and discourses of cultural life - can play an important role in
political struggle and emancipation, just as they play a role in limiting
and restricting free agents.

• The final critique comes from the poststructuralist camp. They claim
that the old certainties established by classical structural approaches,
represented by the work of Saussure, Levi-Strauss and the early
works of Barthes and Baudrillard no longer hold. Specifically, we can¬
not assume a direct, straightforward relationship between sign and
signified, as suggested by foundational structural linguistics. In fact,
in a world overloaded with signs, what is signified by which sign is
no longer clear. Meaning in this context is then up for grabs, and any
assurance that meaning is structured by a set of language-like rela¬
tionships is challenged. One of the most extreme forms of this contes¬
tation of the real is found in the later works of Baudrillard, who - as
we saw earlier in this chapter - was once the champion of a Levi-
Straussian structuralism. Baudrillard's argument is that the estab¬
lished meanings of sign and signifier can no longer be trusted, and
that in a consumer, mass-mediated culture such relationships are
reduced to play and gesture, such that distinguishing between reality

The Object as Symbolic Code

83

and simulation becomes difficult or even, in fact, an outmoded and
impotent defense.

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Roland Barthes’ essays in his companion works Mythologies (1993119571), and
The Eiffel Tower {1979), are a terrific place to start to understand some of the prin¬
ciples of the structural approach, especially in the context of how such principles
play out in the context of a consumer society. The essays are generally no more
than 2-5 pages each. Then try to consider the theoretical piece at the end of
Mythologies that lays the groundwork for Barthes’ critical-structuralist vision of
semiotics. Also, the collection of Levi-Strauss’ interviews on Canadian radio pub¬
lished in Myth and Meaning (1979) are valuable distillations of his thinking and
his vision for, and commitment to, structuralist analysis. I have discussed Dick
Hebdige’s work on youth sub-cultures in his book Subculture, The Meaning of Style
(1979) which fuses structuralist principles with critical insights. Also try his book
Hiding in the Light (1988), especially the section on the trajectory or biography of
the Italian motor scooter.

FIVE

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe.
Objects, Symbols and Cultural Categories

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter reviews 'cultural' theories of material culture. These
approaches are not formally semiotic or structural like the models
considered in the previous chapter, however they situate objects as
crucial to the practice and processes of culture. There are five main
sections:

• an outline of the way tastes and preferences for particular objects
and things are linked to cultural narratives

• a review of the foundational work of Durkheim and Mauss on
culture and classification, showing its relevance to material cul¬
ture studies

• a discussion of how contemporary scholars have applied, refined
and developed the Durkheimian tradition in studies of technolog¬
ical objects

• a review of the work of Mary Douglas and Daniel Miller, who are
centrally responsible for asserting a place of meaning and culture at
the core of people-object relations, and consumption practice broadly

• a consideration of the way objects are transformed within culture,
and how their meanings change, depending on time-space contexts.

The whole world seems populated with forces that in reality exist only in our
minds. We know what the flag is for the soldier, but in itself it is only a bit of
cloth ... A cancelled postage stamp may be worth a fortune, but obviously that
value is in no way entailed by its natural properties. But collective representa¬
tions often impute to the things to which they refer properties that do not exist
in them ... The soldier who falls defending his flag certainly does not believe
he has sacrificed himself to a piece of cloth ... to express our own ideas even
to ourselves, we need to attach those ideas to material things that symbolize
them. (Durkheim, 1995[1912]: 228-9)

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85

Recapping approaches to studying objects

This chapter begins with a brief review. The previous chapters surveyed
two fundamental theoretical traditions for the interpretation of objects.
The first theoretical tradition derives from Marxist and critical approaches
(Chapter 3). Two general points can be made about this perspective. First,
this tradition establishes the thesis that objects are the material embodi¬
ment of the human labour that produced them and, in the last instance,
any object - as commodity - represents exploited human capacity and
the ultimate degradation of human creativity and identity. Second - and
this comes from authors who refined and developed Marx's work into the
twentieth century - objects that exist in abundance in consumer societies
actually do a type of psychological and emotional harm to citizens: they
deaden creativity, exploit emotional needs, and encourage bogus devel¬
opments of self which defy authentic human needs. In this tradition then,
objects are capitalist objects first and foremost. The possibility that they
can have positive, constructive meanings within culture is circumscribed
by their status as commodities. The second theoretical field discussed (in
Chapter 4) is associated with structural and semiotic approaches. Again,
a couple of fundamental threads in this tradition can be discerned. First,
we can say that this tradition is concerned with the symbolic meaning of
objects, as opposed to Marxist and critical approaches where meaning is
subsumed under a political economy framework. Moreover, objects are
accounted for within an autonomous theoretical framework, indebted
principally from Saussure's programme for structural linguistics, that
is, objects have meanings that are established 'relationally' through a
broader field of object associations, understood through the analytic model
of signs and signifiers developed by Saussure. Further, as shown by
Barthes, the language of objects speaks at another, meta level - the myth.
Thus, an object first refers to something other than itself. At another level
it signifies broader cultural myths or discourses, for example, about suc¬
cess, status, masculinity, individualism or even larger questions about
social consensus and dominant belief systems.

In the current chapter, the third and final major theoretical platform
for understanding material culture will be considered. It can be labelled a
'cultural' approach to understanding material culture. While it has more
in common with the semiotic, structural tradition than the critical
approach, it also has some differences. The semiotic and structural tradi¬
tion, developed by Saussure and most forcefully advocated and applied
in Levi-Strauss' work, insists on the relationality of objects within a sys¬
tem of semiotic codes. What can be called the 'cultural' approach to mate¬
rial culture is less committed to this strong model of linguistic
structuralism and a semiotic methodology. It does insist however, that
objects have important cultural meanings and that they frequently do
some sort of 'cultural work' related to representing the contours of cul¬
ture, including matters of social difference, establishing social identity or

86

Theoretical Approaches

managing social status. Much of the recent work in cultural anthropology
has drawn attention to this culturally embedded nature of consumption
objects; that is, the social, cultural and emotive capacities of objects that
people acquire and use (Douglas and Isherwood, [1996]1979; Kopytoff,
1986; Miller, 1987). It is this work that the current chapter will consider.

The universe in an object: objects and classifications
of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’

This preliminary section considers the repertoires people deploy to make
judgements about objects through the concept of taste. It is through such
classificatory judgements that people come to define the boundaries of
culture. Everyday notions of 'taste' provide a sociological context for the
analysis and discussion of the material possessions people have, and the
possible reasons for their choices. The concept of taste allows us to link
material culture to individual choice and the discourses that situate and
express it (that is, 'what I like and why I like it'), and in turn an individ¬
ual's cultural location (that is, 'how my choices are different or similar to
others').

An argument can also be made that when people make such choices
broader issues are actually at stake, and that there is a grander, cultural
narrative at work in the presentation and justification of material culture.
At a literal level one's taste is about such things as: matching colours,
appropriate skirt lengths or shoe heel sizes, the optimal way to spend
leisure time, the ways one should greet others, one's choice in lounge cov¬
erings, preferences for antique or new furniture, how one's kitchen reno¬
vation was planned, and the search for beautiful things to fill one's house
or cover one's body. At a more abstract, grand level, what can our tastes,
and the objects we possess, tell us about the particular contours or dis¬
courses of contemporary culture?

The elementary place to start is with ideas of good and bad, inherently
cultural notions in the sense that these two seemingly simple words
assign value to things. We can think about ideas of worth philosophically
as well as sociologically. Notions of what is good and bad have troubled
generations of philosophers from The Ancients to Moderns. To judge
something or someone as good or bad is a philosophical problem of some
substance for it involves a series of thought processes which subsume
notions of desirability, needs and wants, satisfaction, rightness, effi¬
ciency, pleasure and obligation (Sparshott, 1958). At the same time, from
a sociological point of view, judgements of what is good and bad for us,
others, groups or societies would seem to be routine, frequent and taken
for granted elements of everyday life. However philosophically foggy
and misplaced everyday evaluations of 'good' and 'bad' may be, they
seem an inescapable component of social existence and can be found in
myriad mundane feelings such as: 'eating something would be good'.

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87

'physical exercise would be good for me', 'to finish project x would be
good', 'to buy a new shirt would be good', 'person x is not my type of
person'.

The British philosopher Francis Sparshott (1958: 122) outlines the sim¬
ple meaning of 'good' to be that which 'is such to satisfy the wants of the
person or persons concerned'. While Sparshott does not concern himself
with notions of bad things, it is reasonable to assume that bad things fail
to satisfy wants, or at least people believe that they will fail to satisfy par¬
ticular wants. It seems likely that everyday notions of what is perceived
as likely to satisfy, and what is perceived as likely to fail to satisfy, are
reflective of almost universal human habits and traits of judgement or
evaluation. Such notions of satisfaction invariably carry references to a
state of incompleteness, equivalent to Baudrillard's (1996[1968j) idea of
'lack', because there is an implied reference to a hitherto lacking desirable
'good' or undesirable 'bad' object or person which has potential to satiate
desire. Sparshott puts it this way in his philosophical inquiry into good¬
ness: 'desires and needs are alike deficiencies, and carry a reference to a
perfected or completed somewhat' (1958: 133). Judging the ability of a
thing or person to complete or satisfy seems an essential element of our
culture - it is the basis of the act of consumption, and is a mandatory rou¬
tine of our lives that involves navigating myriad options in order to weigh
value, to find merits or deficiencies, and to decide in favour or against
something (Sparshott, 1958: 128). As Sparshott points out, we live in a cul¬
ture of evaluation, and the notion of good, and by implication also the
notion of bad, are key operators in these everyday judgements: 'such
arguments tend to present themselves in the form: good or bad?'
(Sparshott, 1958: 128).

Moving from the philosophical dimensions of 'good' and 'bad', an
argument can be made that notions of good and bad are universal sym¬
bolic structures. Just as psychologists have argued that disgust is a basic
emotion from which nuanced shades of secondary emotions develop (see
William Ian Miller's book The Anatomy of Disgust (1997) for a discussion
of this), so 'good' and 'bad' become universal, binary linguistic operators
for distinguishing people and things in our lives. From good and bad
emerge a large variety of emotional shades, signified by varying linguis¬
tic operators, for example words such as 'uplifting', 'edifying' and 'satis¬
factory' for good; and 'worthless', 'poor', 'inadequate' or 'inappropriate'
for bad. It is possible to see notions of good and bad situated as symbolic
foundations around which an endless variety of judgements can be
made. The deployment of the notions 'good' and 'bad' are thus not expe¬
rienced as philosophical conundrums for actors - though they do engage
in processes of 'weighing up' - as they become natural or taken for
granted modes of interaction with the world. Judgements about people,
their behaviours and material culture happen routinely, and are some¬
times based on this binary opposition of good and bad, helpful or harm¬
ful, worthy or worthless. While some notion of 'good' and 'bad' becomes

88

Theoretical Approaches

the basis or master scheme for a retrievable complex of resources or
narratives used in everyday judgements, according to variables such as
age, class, peer group and education level, we embellish these opposi¬
tions with a variety of words and concepts that give 'goodness' and 'bad¬
ness' unique hues across different contexts. In this way, it is possible to
see how the idea of distinguishing between good and bad types has par¬
ticular relevance to the practice of consumption, for at its elementary
stage, consumption is a process of selection or discernment of things that
are perceived to satisfy To fully consider this question of simultaneously
classifying particular objects and one's 'world', we can look to the work
of figurehead scholars from the Annee Sociologique, a group centred
around French sociologist Emile Durkheim in the early part of the twen¬
tieth century Durkheim's work on religious sentiments and the sacred
and profane within culture is valuable for understanding the symbolic
dimensions of material culture, as is the work of his protege, Marcel
Mauss.

Durkheim, Mauss and cultural classification: the symbolic
division of objects

We can begin by visiting the key points of Durkheim and Mauss'
(1963[1903j) theory of classification, drawn from the book Primitive
Classification. Their assertion is that the key problem for the human sci¬
ences, sociology in particular, is how cultural classifications are made.
Psychologists have a particular approach to this question that is individual-
centred. According to this view, classifications have salience because they
allow the individual to make categorisations and demarcations which are
an important element of individual psychology, yet such sortings tie indi¬
viduals to the group: classifications entangle individuals within society.
The task of the ethnographer, Durkheim and Mauss believed, is to dis¬
cover the classifications people make. These classifications form the basis
of daily life, and constitute fundamental cultural practices, for example
assessments of things as good or bad, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, self
or other, and so on. Such processes allow things in the natural and social
world to be classified within a system that is essentially symbolic. They
help people make their way, so to speak, as individuals attempt to assem¬
ble facts about their world into a systematic and symbolic whole.

Human beings thus have a drive to classify - as we would understand
a scientist to do - but they also cannot help but assign cultural value.
Durkheim and Mauss' argument is that classification is a process of
marking-off, of demarcating things that are related, but have distinct
points of difference to another. These systems of ideas of relation and dif¬
ference serve to connect and unify knowledge about the world. They
build up a hierarchical system where ideas form chains of meanings, and
where values can be assigned and competing discursive constructs weighed

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

89

up. Importantly, the symbolic partnership of things is deeply, emotionally
felt, so that violations of symbolic coupling are experienced and con¬
ceived as polluted and dangerous.

In primitive societies, classes of people and objects are grouped into
classifications together, distinguished only by their relative location in a
symbolic universe. As social complexity develops, so does the complexity
of classifications, in accordance with a general model of evolutionary
progress. Yet, despite this evolutionary understanding, Durkheim and
Mauss maintain that the classifications primitive people make are not
exceptional or singular and thus inferior in some way, rather that classifi¬
cation is a universal feature of human (social) thought that is scientific in
nature. Here we can see affinities with Levi-Strauss' structural anthropol¬
ogy developed over half a century later - classifications are about under¬
standing one's place in the world relative to other people and other
things, and developing a unified account of cultural symbols:

The object is not to facilitate action, but to advance understanding, to make
intelligible the relations which exist between things ... Such classifications are
thus intended, above all, to connect ideas, to unify knowledge; as such, they
may be said without inexactitude to be scientific. (Durkheim and Mauss,

1 963[1 903]: 81)

In The Elementary Forms of the Religions Life (1995[1912j), Durkheim
extends this theory of classification in a couple of important areas. He
maintains that the systems of representation people make of themselves,
and the world generally, are of principal importance in understanding
the distinctive nature of the social. Categories of understanding are the
modus operandi of social beings, the 'solid frames that confine thought'
(1995[1912j: 9). His principal interest is in religious sentiments, which he
understands as eminently social and as the basis for the categorical divi¬
sions people make in society. Importantly, Durkheim points out that clas¬
sifications are not merely dry, technical accomplishments but come to
obtain their cultural authority by virtue of the moral quality they possess.
Classifications of things have a moral force which animates them, and
which contributes to their robustness and emotional depth. Thus, we can
say that classifications of objects and commodities, and the aesthetic
judgements implicit in them, are not merely representative of emptied-
out, ersatz forms of individualism, but have an associated moral force that
gives them durability and strength.

Do such processes hold up in consumer societies? Is it possible that dif¬
ference and classification within consumer societies have a moral weight
attached to them? We can answer this in the affirmative by looking to
other research areas, for example, in Bourdieu's theory of taste, consid¬
ered in the following chapter. We have also seen it as an implicit force in
Hebdige's analysis of fashion and youth cultures: elements of material
culture can be deployed to demonstrate challenges to conventional

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Theoretical Approaches

cultural codes, which in turn lend themselves to supporting particular
moral stances. In a different tradition, Lamont's (1992) study of the man¬
ners and morals of middle- to upper-class citizens in France and the
United States shows that people attach moral weight to what could be
seen as rather mundane traits, objects and behaviours of others, including
the things they consume, possess and display

Durkheim's other significant insight in Elementary Forms, which is use¬
ful for our purposes, is that these systems of classification are inescapable
evidence of the socialness of systems of representation. He says: 'as part
of society, the individual naturally transcends himself, both when he
thinks and when he acts' (Durkheim, 1995[1912]: 16). Hierarchies of clas¬
sification develop as society develops - in fact, they are the basis of forms
of sociality. Systems of classifying people, objects and things are thus
linked to a collective consciousness - they obtain meaning by reference to
other socially sanctioned classifications such that conceiving or classify¬
ing something is both learning its essential elements better, and also locat¬
ing it in its place. In making such classifications, humans perform a
commitment to the social, and bear out that 'society' is deep within them:

Thus, in order to prevent dissidence, society weighs on its members with all
its authority. Does a mind seek to free itself from these norms of all thought?
Society no longer considers this a human mind in the full sense, and treats it
accordingly. This is why it is that when we try, even deep down inside, to get
away from these fundamental notions, we feel that we are not fully free; some¬
thing resists us; more than that, because society is represented inside us well,
it resists these revolutionary impulses from within. (Durkheim, 1 995[1 91 2]: 1 6)

Durkheim asserts that it is the nature of religious sentiment to divide the
world into two distinct, polarised moral domains: the sacred and profane.
Sacred things are not just gods or divine spirits, anything can be sacred.
For example, an original artpiece by a famous artist, a first edition run of
a book by a famous author, a highly valued consumer object like an iPod,
or a pair of running spikes worn by a famous athlete. Any such thing has
an aura, an iconic status, and comes to be highly regarded within certain
communities. Sacred things are regarded as superior in dignity and
power, profane things are set apart and forbidden. Each binary is held
together - in symbolic opposition - by beliefs, rituals and practices which
unite one single moral community (from a national society, to a sub¬
culture) through ritualistic practices of exclusion and commitment. These
religious sentiments - the sacred and profane - allow people capacity to
think about their worlds, others and the objects within them, and offer
schemas for guiding social action. Its highest form is found in its social
expression, enabled by a system of collective representations, whereby the
individual participates in the world through navigating the universe of
collective symbols. Durkheim imagined this extra-societal sentiment as a
type of collective conscience, and the highest form of psychic life. Society

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

91

is not possible without this collective conscience, and for this to exist
individuals and things must be divided up into groups, and these groups
must be symbolically classified in relation to one another:

The individual realizes, at least dimly, that above his private representations

there is a world of type-ideas according to which he has to regulate his own;

he glimpses a whole intellectual world in which he participates but which is

greater than he. (Durkheim, 1 995[1 91 2]: 438)

In contemporary research into everyday understandings of good and bad
taste (Woodward and Emmison, 2001), investigators asked a sample of
respondents how they would define 'good taste' and 'bad taste'. Though
the survey question presented to respondents attunes them to ideas of
'good and bad taste', the sentiments respondents expressed were a perfect
example of how things in the aesthetic and commercial domain have a par¬
ticular moral weight. Thus, certain practices of taste and particular types or
styles of contemporary material culture come to be evaluated as 'beautiful',
'timeless', 'elegant', 'vulgar', 'garish' or 'unsuitable', but in the end are clas¬
sified as in the realm of good, or in the realm of bad. This is a simple, bipar¬
tite system of classification, and condensing the complexities of taste and
aesthetic judgement to this binary scheme might be seen as somewhat
reductionist. However, it has the advantage of illustrating how such judge¬
ments come to acquire an ethical force, and it allows actors the discursive
space to make their own demarcations of the good and bad. These assess¬
ments are embellished with a variety of concepts and words by respon¬
dents, however in the end they are judged as satisfying or not, good or bad.

Marcel Mauss' study of gift exchange in primitive societies. The Gift
(1967[1954j), also reinforces how activities within the domain of commerce
and exchange can carry moral weight by allowing us to make relational clas¬
sifications of people and things. What is the purpose of a gift, Mauss asks,
when we understand that exchanging gifts does not enhance the absolute
wealth of those involved in the exchange, and is not required for suste¬
nance? Drawing on ethnographic studies from around the world, Mauss
declares that gifts are supposedly voluntary, spontaneous and without self-
interest, but in fact are obligatory, planned and self-interested. That gifts pur¬
port to be generously offered, free of self-consideration, is actually a form of
social deception. For example, in Samoan culture to receive a gift is some¬
thing which honours a person and brings them 'mana', or prestige. This in
turn, brings with it the absolute obligation to return the gift. Gifts then are
not inert but are alive and personified, and achieve a type of magical, spiri¬
tual hold over giver and receiver, such that receiving a gift is akin to receiv¬
ing a part of a person's essence: 'to give something is to give part of oneself'
(Mauss, 1967[1954]: 10). Gifts thus bring with them: (i) an obligation to repay,
(ii) an obligation to give, and (iii) an obligation to receive.

Mauss extends his analysis of gift exchange on other cultures to note
that even in western culture, where social and economic routines are

92

Theoretical Approaches

apparently dominated by contracts and forms of instrumental rationality
economic activity incorporates more than a system of exchange, being one
part of the enduring, wider social contract amongst citizens. Economic
activity then brings with it a form of civility (1967[1954]: 81), so that trade
and wealth generation brings with it general increases in living standards,
social solidarity and peacefulness. Forms of exchange cannot be reduced
to economy:

It is our good fortune that all is not yet couched in terms of purchase and sale.

Things have value which are emotional and material; indeed in some cases

the values are entirely emotional. Our morality is not solely commercial. (Mauss,

1 967[1 954]: 63)

Developing a Durkheimian approach to objects:

Alexander and Smith on sacred and profane discourses
about technologies

As part of their development of a 'strong programme' in cultural sociol¬
ogy, Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith (see Alexander, 2003) have sought
to integrate the structural analyses of Levi-Strauss and Saussure, which as
we have seen have focused on the codes, narrative and categories that
inform culture. Alongside this structuralist tradition which emphasises
the autonomy of cultural systems and codes, Alexander and Smith pro¬
pose to enrich this model by applying a deeply interpretive, hermeneutic
genre, inspired particularly by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, and
especially Durkheim's late work on religion. Their goal is to articulate a
sociological paradigm that is both 'structural' in the Levi-Straussian sense,
and also 'hermeneutic' in Geertz's sense, allowing for the thick descrip¬
tion of understandings, meanings and practices. Their work represents
some of the most important recent work in the field of culture. First, we
look at one of Alexander's empirical papers on discourses surrounding
emergent computer technologies of the twentieth century. We can see
it is a type of model paper allowing us to see how such a structural and
hermeneutic analysis of material culture could unfold.

Alexander begins by laying out a key myth of modern life: the belief that
science and rationality make the world a problem of purely technological
means. That is, put another way, technological advancements will allow us
to face and overcome any problems we encounter related to time, space
and the natural elements. As a corollary, Alexander points out that the
modem world is in an important way against culture - understood as
things such as beauty, emotion, feeling, relationships and meaning - and is
utterly materialistic. The modern world is inextricably directed by tech¬
nologies which routinely allow us to accomplish tasks and goals that
human bodies alone are unable to achieve. But the story of technology that
is functional or utilitarian is not the only story to be told about technology:

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

93

Technology is rooted in the deepest resources and abysses of our imagination.

It is religion and anti-religion, our god and our devil, the sublime and the
accursed. (Alexander, 2003: 179)

Alexander asserts that understandings of technology have generally been
identified as a materialist thing par excellence, 'the most routine of the rou¬
tine' (2003: 180) that helps us to make a way and do business in the world.
One might think of numerous examples of these routine yet highly pow¬
erful technological items on the basis of Alexander's suggestion: traffic
lights, motor vehicles, electric lighting, writing implements, coats, socks
and shoes, and so the list could go on. Simultaneously materialist and
functional, and deeply constitutive of our way of thinking about doing
things in the social world, such objects can signify a range of meanings.
Technology, Alexander asserts, must be situated in a cultural order: a
material thing, 'it is a sign, both a signifier and signified, in relation to
which actors cannot entirely separate their subjective states of mind'
(2003: 180). Alexander goes on to identify two broad traditions in the aca¬
demic interpretation of technology The first is indebted to Weber's ideas
about bureaucracy, rationalisation, discipline and calculation, and is a
pessimistic story of how technology gradually seeps into every bit of
social life. The second is derived from critical theorists, notably Lukacs
and Marcuse, and emphasises technology as the means for subjugating
labour as the growth of a technological culture begins to define modern
capitalism.

Alexander's view goes beyond both of these inadequate or partial
accounts. He urges us to see technology as a discourse - a sign system that
is ordered by both semiotic structures or codes, and social and emotional
demands. Technology is an object upon which people attach meaning, a
'good for thinking with' in the Levi-Straussian sense:

Human beings continue to experience the need to invest the world with meta¬
physical meaning and to experience solidarity with objects outside the self.
(Alexander, 2003: 184)

In terms of the specific meanings attributed to technology, Alexander uses
the Durkheimian idea that humans divide the world into things and events
that are sacred and profane. The sacred refers to images of the good that
people strive to protect, while profane describes images of evil from which
people need protection. For example, at the heart of our imaginings of the
computer are a set of deeply felt oppositions, where machines have a capac¬
ity to embody both the hopes and fears generated by industrial society.
Using a textual analysis of newspaper and magazine material from around
the time of the computer's birth, Alexander shows how it is understood in
sacred and profane terms. As a sacred object it is: a super-brain, superhuman,
the closest thing to God, and can solve things that have baffled generations
in a flash. As a profane object, the computer is: a colossal gadget, a
Frankenstein monster, a mathematical dreadnought, a figure factory The

94

Theoretical Approaches

computer is thus understood as having the capacity to be both saviour and
destroyer: as a sacred thing it 'is the vehicle for salvation' while its 'profane
side threatens destruction' (2003: 191).

Working in the same tradition, Philip Smith (2003) develops some
groundwork for a Durkheimian theory of punishment by exploring the
meanings associated with a particular item of punishment technology: the
guillotine. Following a similar logic to Alexander in his analysis of
discourses about the computer. Smith makes the point that punishment
technologies have moved in unison with the general tendencies of
modernisation: toward rationality, reason and efficiency. This view of the
relentless infiltration of modern imperatives into the pores of everyday
life is consistent with Foucault's thesis in Discipline and Punish, who is per¬
haps the most important contributor to this tradition in criminology and
social theory more broadly. Smith takes issue with this dominant thesis by
looking at the guillotine case within the field of punishment, and assem¬
bles historical evidence from eighteenth-century newspapers, pamphlets
and encyclopedias to show that a counter-discourse accompanies this
'rationality' discourse that is highly emotional, profoundly symbolic and
founded upon grotesque and Gothic imagery. So, rather than the guillo¬
tine being a type of spectacular celebration of the punishment of deviance
(for example, as was public torture or hanging), the guillotine was imag¬
ined to be an efficient, rational and passionless technology. As such, it
eliminated the rich and possibly dangerous semiotic field that accompa¬
nied earlier modes of punishment, for example in Foucault's well-known
contrast between the excruciating torture of Damiens and the prison
timetable developed by Faucher which made the body docile, rather than
destroy it. Smith summarises this 'passionless' view of the guillotine as
another iteration of the story of the rationalisation of the world and the
(Weberian) movement toward a bleak iron cage, where the guillotine
would be identified as merely a dull and material expression of instru¬
mental reason:

Although intended as a material celebration of scientistic Enlightenment
codes and dramatizing these in its efficient operation, the guillotine stimulated
a febrile counter-discourse of heteroglossic, grotesque and Gothic symbol¬
ism. Totemistic collective representations, mythologies and vivid imaginative
speculations became powerfully implicated in the evaluation of the penal
technology by both advocates and critics. (Smith, 2003: 7)

Looking to give fruition to a Durkheimian theory of punishment, the
resources for which remain latent in Durkheim's work. Smith shows that
there were divergent cultural discourses surrounding the guillotine. He
does not reject Foucault's emphasis on the guillotine as representing a
rational instrument of science, but argues that such a thesis has displaced,
even obliterated, a more culturally sensitive account of punishment.
Smith argues his historical material shows that this object was an

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

95

attractor for a range of cultural discourses, some rational and functional,
some irrational and emotion-charged:

The guillotine was a ‘scientific’ instrument; that its operations involved a rou-
tinisation of bodily activity; and that an emergent professional gaze relent¬
lessly interrogated its embodied effects. Yet it will also become apparent that
none of these came at the expense of more profound symbolic resonance. Far
from eliminating or replacing vital symbolisms, the guillotine and its bodies
became, in Levi-Strauss’s terms, bonnes a penser for a new set of mytholo¬
gies. (Smith, 2003: 30)

Mary Douglas: bringing Durkheim to consumption

One of the key proponents of the Durkheimian tradition in twentieth-
century structural thought has been Mary Douglas. Her work with the
economist Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods (1996[1979]), is an influ¬
ential attempt to apply Durkheimian insights to problems of contempo¬
rary consumption. In this book Douglas and Isherwood seek to redress
the poverty of economic theorising on consumption, which is identified
to be overly narrow and obsessed with abstractions of consumer 'ratio¬
nality' and utility, or alternately, taken with the Veblenesque notion that
consumption is a crude game of conspicuous, 'competitive display'. In
this latter tradition, consumption and consumerist tendencies are com¬
monly castigated and scorned as 'greed, stupidity and insensitivity to want'
(1996[1979]: vii). Douglas and Isherwood assert that neither moral indigna¬
tion aroused by supposed excesses, nor micro-economic abstraction, is
enough to understand the attractions of consumption.

In this work they provide what stands as probably the most systematic
treatment of the nature of goods as cultural props. In the preface to this
work, they assert a manifesto: 'goods are neutral, their uses are social;
they can be used as fences or bridges'. The general goal is thus to contex¬
tualise consumption practice within the social and cultural process,
broadly conceived, though uncovering its cultural codes, etiquettes and
conventions. Along with this, it is necessary to understand the work they
do to include, exclude and construct social identities and categories. This
then, reads like a contemporary version of Levi-Strauss' bonnes d penser
(see previous chapter), but without the call-to-arms, strident structural¬
ism that sometimes crept into Levi-Strauss' work.

Douglas and Isherwood's core argument is that goods are resources
for thinking, demarcating and classifying. They acknowledge that while
goods, or consumer objects, originate in the system of capitalist produc¬
tion, at the same time 'all material possessions carry social meanings' and,
as resources for thinking, commodity objects make 'visible and stable
categories of culture' (2000[1966j: 38). Though goods 'come from' the
economy, in order to understand their attractions and meanings we

96

Theoretical Approaches

should conceptualise them autonomously from economic frameworks.
As something for making sense of the world, consumer objects assist
people in demarcating social categories, maintaining social relationships,
and thus assigning worth and value to things and people (Douglas,
2000[1966]; Douglas and Isherwood, 1996[1979]). Consumption then has
a moral component, in that choice and selection are not driven solely by
utilitarian needs nor understood by consumers as 'simple choices', but,
for the user, consuming objects acquires a deeper emotional significance.
Certainly, we can hypothesise that this will be more likely for some goods
more than others, and possibly for people of certain ages or social back¬
grounds more than others. Douglas and Isherwood recommend then, that
to understand objects, analysts need to bracket out matters to do with
markets and utility:

...we shall assume that the essential function of consumption is its capacity
to make sense. Forget the idea of consumer irrationality. Forget that commodi¬
ties are good for eating, clothing and shelter; forget their usefulness and try
instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking; treat them as a non¬
verbal medium for the human creative faculty. (Douglas and Isherwood, 1996
[1979]: 40-1)

Consumption, then, is about meaning-making. The world of goods becomes
a world of possible meanings for consumers. The attraction of consuming
things, therefore, is only partly that it (temporarily) satiates needs. The
more important attraction of consuming things is that it offers continuous
opportunity to perform, affirm and manage the self. Social actors under¬
stand themselves in relation to others, and other things: they crave seeing
themselves (or their potential, promised selves) reflected in other's talk
and actions, and in the objects that surround them. So, one picks and
chooses from the available array of goods within any particular class (e.g.,
canned tomatoes, bottled waters, motor vehicles, apples, strawberries and
cherries) taking into accounts one's means and one's preferences, for
example, for organic or environmentally sound produce, or for local
rather than international goods, all the time keeping in mind the selec¬
tions of others. So we must see that episodes of consumption are not
merely shopping or provisioning expeditions, but opportunities to give
meaning to or affirm one's social relationships and the wider social uni¬
verse. A good example is within the world of sneakers where consumers
have to navigate a variety of brands, styles and aesthetic preferences:
Adidas, Nike, Reebok, Puma, K-Swiss, Converse, old or new school, retro
or contemporary, global brand or no-name? Miles' (1996) ethnographic
research into youth and their choice of sneakers shows this facet of choice
and its weight with skill: youths need to think carefully about their choice
of sneakers because what they wear positions themselves within a cul¬
tural universe that is played out on their neighbourhood streets, the high
streets of their towns and cities, and their playgrounds. Another

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

97

confirmation of this approach is found in Daniel Miller's (1987)
ethnographic work on grocery shopping. Miller shows that routine shop¬
ping expeditions involving household provisioning are really opportuni¬
ties for shoppers to think through aspects of their relationships with
others. More on Miller's work later in this chapter.

Douglas and Isherwood pick up on Barthes' discussion of different
ways to make coffee as an example of how routine, everyday acts of con¬
suming things (coffee beans, liquid, cup, grinder) become opportunities
to delineate crucial debates about self and non-self, the inauthentic and
the truthful, the good and bad. Douglas and Isherwood dwell on the sym¬
bolic meanings of whether one chooses to grind coffee beans with a
mechanical grinder, or pestle and mortar:

The grinder works mechanically, the human hand only supplies force, and
electric power can easily be substituted for it; its produce is kind of dust-fine,
dry and impersonal. By contrast there is an art in wielding the pestle. Bodily
skills are involved, and the stuff on which they are bestowed is not hard metal,
but instead the noblest of materials, wood. And out of the mortar comes not a
mere dust, but a gritty powder, pointing straight to the ancient lore of alchemy
and its potent brews. The choice between pounding and grinding is thus a
choice between two different views of the human condition and between
metaphysical judgements lying just beneath the surface of the question.
(Douglas and Isherwood, 1996(1979]: 50)

Goods and their consumption are more properly seen within systems of
information. Utility is but one component of the nature of goods. Most
importantly, they are social markers: not just of beauty and prestige, but
all sorts of social categories which find expression in goods people are
associated with, acting for the consumer's self, and for others who wit¬
ness the consumption. Codes, messages and symbols circulate through
commodities, as consumers attempt to be near the centre of message
transmission in order to make sense of it and to participate.

Douglas and Isherwood extend their thesis by suggesting that
consumption becomes the social system itself: the actual means for con¬
stituting self, society and culture. This notion has overtones of the recent
Foucault-inspired governmentality literature, in that consumption
becomes a means of expressing and managing self and populations. The
significance of consumption, Douglas and Isherwood suggest, is that it
actually constitutes the social system, with each episode or consumption
event being merely one part of the process of building culture, through
continuously expending, rebuilding and expending bits of it. In doing so,
they suggest that consumption is more than just a way of social commu¬
nication, but constitutive of it:

But consumption goods are definitely not mere messages; they constitute the
very system itself. Take them out of human intercourse and you have dismantled
the whole thing. In being offered, accepted, or refused, they either reinforce or

98

Theoretical Approaches

undermine existing boundaries. The goods are both the hardware and the
software, so to speak, of an information system whose principal concern it to
monitor its own performance. (Douglas and Isherwood, 1996[1979]: 49)

Miller and studying material culture in societies of abundance

Daniel Miller's (1987) programme for material culture studies argues sim¬
ilarly for studies of consumption that acknowledge relations between
people and goods in industrial societies. Miller's work was very impor¬
tant in the articulation of the contemporary field of material culture stud¬
ies. His key work Material Culture and Mass Consumption (1987) is a series
of mostly philosophical essays, drawing upon diverse theorists of moder¬
nity, to show how culture is dynamically constituted through meaningful
people-object interactions. In parts the work is dry and very abstract, and
in a critical mood one might decide that the conclusive bits of the work
really say little more than what Douglas and Isherwood said some years
earlier. Yet, in uniquely and impressively combining a variety of founda¬
tional theories of modernity, it is also a very powerful - and sometimes
elegant - statement about the purpose and scope of studying material cul¬
ture that crystallised contemporary interest in the material basis of con¬
sumption. Miller cuts through academic discourses which (unhelpfully)
frame contemporary material culture as representing an inferior form
of primitive authenticity (classical anthropology), as objects of capitalist
oppression (Marxist and critical theory) or as the superficial excreta of an
era obsessed with surface (postmodernism). At its core is the belief that
anthropological insights can be readily applied to study contemporary,
'mass consumption'.

Miller makes the argument that even though we live in an era of mate¬
rial abundance where social life is increasingly experienced through a
vast array of objects, theoretical and conceptual knowledge of material
culture is rudimentary. One key reason for this is that academic study of
consumer culture - and the objects that comprise it - has presumed
objects to be either frivolous or oppressive. One of the reasons Miller
offers for this is spot-on, and amusing. Miller sees the cultural positions
of the scholars themselves as unreflexively reproducing such unsubtle
binaries. Though scholars are immersed in these fields of everyday mate¬
rial culture and often have the cultural and economic means to enthusias¬
tically acquire an array of objects (for example, books, art, technology,
pleasantly furnished homes, tweed coats), scholars have generally
focused on the 'productive' sites of social life such as the workplace, pre¬
serving the myth that the objects one deals with have meanings which are
entirely personal or unworthy of academic reflection. The result has been
a double-standard whereby scholars analyse the thing called 'consumer
society' as if they did not participate in it, or were above it. Likewise, they
often assume - naively - that they somehow do not have aesthetic tastes.

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

99

Whatever else he did or cannot do, Bourdieu radically challenged such a
proposition, and more importantly provided the conceptual means to do
so. Miller's work has little in common with Bourdieu, but through differ¬
ent means allows us to focus the same questions regarding the cultural
uses of things. Miller aims to take consumer societies seriously, without
resorting to hackneyed discussions of authenticity, oppression or superfi¬
ciality. The crux of his argument is neatly captured when he points out
that we should not be so much concerned with what industrial, consumer
culture forces upon us, but with what it allows us to be (or one might add
what it allows us to think or feel). Scholars have rarely stopped to con¬
sider such questions:

The argument that there is a thing called capitalist society which renders its
population entirely pathological and dehumanised, with the exception of cer¬
tain theorists who, although inevitably living their private lives in accordance
with the tenets of this delusion, are able in their abstracted social theory to
rise above, criticize and provide the only alternative model for society, is
somewhat suspicious. (Miller, 1987: 167)

Miller switches the frame of analysis from the economic realm of objecti¬
fication, to the process of consumer objectification. One of Miller's signif¬
icant arguments centres on the important work consumers do in creating
meaning from goods in industrial modernity, and in particular he empha¬
sises the semiotic and cultural labour involved in, and after, the purchase
of commodities (see also. Miller, 1998). It is in this period of time when a
'vast morass of possible goods is replaced by the specificity of the partic¬
ular item' that it is chosen, and subsequently purchased (Miller, 1987:
190). The abstractions of production and exchange emphasised in struc¬
tural accounts of consumption are replaced by the consumer's search for
meaning. It is what happens as people come face-to-face with mass con¬
sumption objects which matters most for Miller. How can we understand
them? How can we gather meaning from objects? How can we confer
meaning on them? Miller thus understands the nature of consuming
objects as fundamentally about the consumer engaging in transforming
the nature and meaning of objects:

consumption as work may be defined as that which translates the object from
an alienable to an inalienable condition; that is, from being a symbol of
estrangement and price value to being an artefact invested with particular
inseparable connotations. (Miller, 1987: 190)

What Miller is referring to is the negation of exchange value - that is it's
price - that must occur for people to invest meaning in an object. The
meanings one gives are malleable - interpretations of objects will change
according to social positions - age, gender, class and so on. Intuitively,
as a consumer you might sometimes feel this hermeneutic process of
transforming an object from exchange value to one invested with personal

100

Theoretical Approaches

meanings. Think of a situation where you have paid quite a deal of money
for something, perhaps a costly piece of technology, or an expensive item
of clothing or footwear. Presumably, at some stage of the consumption
process you were uncertain about purchasing this thing, or at least had to
weigh up certain choices about brands, models, styles and of course,
costs. At this stage, you may desire the object in question, but not possess
it and certainly your relationship with it is mostly about rather abstract
matters. Once you decide to purchase the object, you must then come to
feel at one with the object - you must let it into your life and feel as if it is
a natural 'part of you'. You probably remember that this takes some time,
and perhaps personal rationalisation. Over time, the object comes to be
valued, or not, and continually experienced through its (often changing)
form. For example, a favourite tee shirt will fade and loosen up a little, as
will a pair of canvas sneakers. Such changes in object form then require
corresponding changes in the interpretation and use of the object, giving
it a type of lifecourse. For example, the fading tee shirt may eventually be
deemed unsuitable for wearing in public, becoming used for dirty or
'backstage' work like house cleaning or gardening.

Miller also outlines a series of contextual dimensions of material cul¬
ture, which are summarised below.

• The artefact as manufactured object. Though most objects are functionally
and symbolically flexible, some objects are intentionally produced for
particular purposes, and, as such, are constrained by the very nature of
their manufacture. One might note that art practices easily make such
classifications irrelevant, as they transform things like machinery parts
for artistic purposes such as sculpture. So, some artefacts do stand for
particular types of production, but of course, this matters little for the
users of an object.

• Artefacts and function. There are a variety of differentiations of objects
based on their function, for example, in machinery or technology, or in
types of soles worn on special use shoes. But, what is more important.
Miller asserts, is symbolic and aesthetic variation, like the differences
in shapes of bottles that contain different types of alcohol, or in the
design of different types of shoes.

• Artefacts and property. Artefacts are tied up with the development of
personal property rights, and also with our sense of self. For example,
one owns the clothing they wear, but this clothing also represents an
important boundary of self upon which others may not infringe.

• Artefacts, space and time. Social spaces acquire symbolic potency through
the existence of particular objects and their location within space. Objects
must also be contextualised in time. For example, a bus bench might be
used for a variety of functions throughout a 24-hour period.

• Artefacts and style. Style refers to the capacity to arrange and order objects
in an individual or unique way. The notion of style is easily observed
in the domain of home furnishing, where objects are differentiated

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101

along lines, and must be arranged in relation to one another in a coherent
manner also as to convey a personal sense of 'style'. Home furnishers
must take into account things such as colour, texture and scale, some¬
times paying attention to tried and true schemes of good taste, and
other times playing around with, even disturbing, such schemes to cal¬
culated effect.

Miller's contribution to material culture studies as the examination of
contemporary consumption habits and processes can be more broadly sit¬
uated in the context of consumption studies. Particularly, Miller's argu¬
ments are best understood in relation to the body of literatures, mostly
sociological but also within cultural studies, human geography and busi¬
ness and marketing, that have sought to take consumption seriously as a
domain of cultural importance in its own right. Miller (1995) asserts that
instead of seeing consumption as something that alienates or oppresses
people, there is a need to understand it as a social, cultural and moral
project. Miller highlights a number of myths held by scholars about
consumption, whom he claims operate with a number of ideological
assumptions about the nature of consumption activity. These can be
reduced to the idea that 'consumption is bad', and that 'consumption is
good'. While the latter element of the binary has had far less circulation,
it is sometimes associated with what might be called celebratory accounts
of consumption which emphasise play, subversion and experimentation
through domains of consumption. The former myth is dominant, and
includes assumptions that consumption is associated with homogenisa¬
tion, opposed to sociality and highly individualist, opposed to authentic¬
ity, and creates particular diminished forms of selfhood.

Miller's strong contribution has been to argue against either form of
reductionism, urging scholars not to commit to simple theories of con¬
sumption. Rather, he wishes to change the focus in consumption studies
to acknowledge the irreducible materiality of consumption processes -
we cannot escape that most forms of consumption involve engagement
with material things. Thus, consumption involves a generic process of
engagement with goods through a process called 'objectification',
whereby consumers use objects as a practice in the world (for example, to
wear as shoes on their feet, or to hit a ball over a net with), and they also
offer forms which afford modes of conduct and understandings to be
enacted. Goods are thus simultaneously about practices and meaning
construction. Under such a conceptualisation, the task of any modern
individual is to locate themselves with schemes of object meaning, search¬
ing for desirable cultural expressions such as 'comfort', 'success', or 'skil¬
ful' through engagement with goods.

Two of Miller's empirical studies illustrate these general principles. In
'Appropriating the state on the Council Estate' (1988) Miller interviews a
range of flat dwellers in lower-middle and working-class council-owned
flats. He finds that even though these dwellers are not rich in economic

102

Theoretical Approaches

capital, nor in the social group one would expect to enjoy the art of home
renovation and decorating - they live in what some call 'valium estates' -
his respondents enthusiastically use a range of techniques to re-decorate
and personalise their kitchens. Feeling alienated by the regular kitchen
fit-out, and the standard shape and size of their kitchens, householders
follow a range of strategies. Some do nothing, another group try to aes-
theticise and essentially cover up their kitchen, using a variety of decora¬
tive objects to build a new kitchen facade and surface to essentially
makeover the problematic appearance of the kitchen, while a final group
went about completely or nearly completely replacing their kitchen. In
doing so, they transform the once alienable kitchen space into something
meaningful and personal, which overcomes the 'contradictions' inherent
in broader industrial, mass society. On the basis of his interviews. Miller
argues that the adoption of renovation strategies was significantly related
to gender, and also identification (or lack of) and sense of belonging
regarding living in the estate. In a later study - A Theory of Shopping
(1998a) - Miller conducts an ethnographic inquiry into the shopping prac¬
tices of a group of North Londoners. His theory of shopping is a study of
the cultural practices and meanings of shopping behaviour which compli¬
cates the theory-heavy approach to consumerism by employing ethno¬
graphic techniques, and implicitly offers a strong critique of the
postmodern account of shopping (1998a: 96). Miller shows the ritual
aspects of shopping, whereby consumers use shopping expeditions to
think about relationships and love, thrift and money-saving, and 'treats'.
He shows that although shopping might sometimes be conducted alone,
it is not necessarily an individualist pursuit, for it constantly involves
the incorporation of imagined others into shopping practices. The mater¬
ial culture on the shopping aisles has functional uses, for sure, and this is
why people purchase them as a form of provisioning, but more impor¬
tantly goods and the shopping expedition is used as a way of imagining
one's own goals, family life and relationships with members of the
family.

The cultural life of commodities. Things have social lives

An important earlier essay which picks up on the theme of transformations
of meaning in material culture through transformations in its status -
evident as a central theme throughout Miller's work - is Igor Kopytoff's
essay on the cultural biography of things (1986). Kopytoff maintains that
commodities should not just be defined by their 'technical' commodity
status - that is, in Marxian terms, as an item with use value that also has
exchange value - but are immersed within cultural and cognitive
processes. Commodities are therefore not inanimate, fixed and stable -
they move in and out of various phases of being commodities and non¬
commodities. As we have seen, as Marcel Mauss argued in The Gift

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

103

(1967[1954]), the realm of the economy is shot through with cultural
significance, so while we may talk of commodities in the sense that we
purchase certain objects, such things are really always cultural markers of
some sort, located within a moral economy where humans dedicate and
assign value and values to things. Kopytoff points out the dichotomy that
has existed in recent western thought where there is an analytic separa¬
tion between people and things - at one end are inanimate commodities,
and the other end are singularised individuals. The relationships between
the two are thin, and instrumen tally defined: people pick up things as
they need them to accomplish various goals, but the relationships are lim¬
ited to this. Kopytoff 's principal goal is to suggest a 'processual' view of
things (and by implication, persons also), whereby the status of objects
undergoes transformations in category and associated meaning.
Especially, Kopytoff is concerned with the process of commodification-
decommodification-recommodification. Corrigan (1997) uses the example
of a cat to illustrate this process. In western societies animals have been
commodified - they can be purchased via market exchange in pet stores
or breeding houses. Thus, sitting in the pet store awaiting purchase, the
cat is a commodity. Once purchased, it is decommodified - incorporated
into a caring family as a loved pet. Generally, it is unlikely the cat would
be recommodified. A piece of art that has been purchased by an individ¬
ual could, however be recommodified. Hanging on a gallery wall it is a
commodity, once purchased it is decommodified as it hangs as art on
someone's wall. Potentially, the piece could re-enter the market for resale
sometime in the future. The general point is this: objects are never cultur¬
ally fixed, but always in the process of being and becoming.

Kopytoff extends his argument to suggest that such transformations are
akin to a type of biography. Thus, things, not just people, have social lives.
Relevant questions to ask about such a biography are: Where does the
thing come from and who made it? What has the thing been designed for?
Who is likely to buy it, and what uses would they put this thing to? What
has been the career of this thing so far, and what do cultural discourses
tell us about the ideal career for this type of thing? Are there recognised
stages in the life of this thing, and what will happen when/if it outlives
its usefulness? (Kopytoff, 1986: 66-7). Kopytoff uses the example of a car.
First, the car must be made by someone, or rather a team, who work for a
large company. In this context, the car is part of the larger institutional
and industrial contexts of that company related to things like profitability,
marketing and product identity, the place of the car within the suite of
cars produced by that company, and also similar cars produced by other
companies. Another part of the car's biography relates to its record of
performance, including reliability, repair and roadworthiness. A further
aspect relates to its social biography: who owns and uses it, and to what
purpose is it put? Is it a family or business car? What do its uses tell us
about our culture more broadly? Finally, is there a time when the car will
be re-sold, or traded on?

104

Theoretical Approaches

Kopytoff argues that the counterdrive to the commodity realm and the
process of widespread commoditisation inherent in western economic
culture is identified to be singularisation. Whereas commoditisation tends
to reduce all things to exchange values (i.e. essentially monetary value),
there is a strong cultural imperative to make some things singular, pow¬
erful and meaningful. In the Durkheimian sense, there is a drive to make
certain objects sacred in order to render them culturally resonant within
the larger cultural universe. Kopytoff argues this can happen at both a
cultural level and an individual level. At a cultural level, sports fans
may sacralise the bat, outfit or shoes of a legendary player; music fans
may assign sacred status to the piano, violin or guitar of a composer or
performer; a museum may recreate a furnished room designed by an
esteemed person, such as the 'Living room from the Little House, Wayzata,
Minnesota', 1912-14, originally designed by the architect Frank Lloyd
Wright now in permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum, New
York. This exhibit effectively sacralises the designs of Lloyd Wright, unit¬
ing a range of Wright's objects, styles and designs within a single setting,
with some embellishments for the purpose of instructing and accommo¬
dating visitors. Along similar lines, much of the trick of marketing certain
contemporary consumer objects is to link them to once singular objects of
the past: sit in a faithfully reproduced chair originally designed by
Macintosh, the Eames, or Panton; use a reproduction of the tea and coffee
set originally designed by Saarinen for the SAS Hotel, Denmark. All of
these objects are widely available in stores, or on the internet (as com¬
modities), but their cultural value is constructed by a process of singular¬
isation based on their scarcity, iconic status or other qualities.

At an individual level, in a world where commodities are abundant,
people are constantly engaged in a private battle against homogeneity,
which is frequently an impetus for a type of transformation involving cus¬
tomisation. The extensive range of accessories for the ubiquitous iPod
digital music player is one simple illustration of this. One can buy differ¬
ent colour iPods, but frequently (one might say, classically?) they are plain
white - suggesting to consumers an object that is cool, light and simple;
but perhaps rather lacking in personality, especially from the standpoint
of younger consumers. Thus, one can buy various 'skins' to personalize
one's iPod, giving it colour and individual presence, as well as some pro¬
tection. Or, a rock musician may attempt to singularise their 'Fender
Stratocaster' style guitar through putting stickers on it, painting it or giv¬
ing it other markings. Along the way, in all these examples, people go
about constructing objects as they construct themselves.

In the introductory essay to the collection of papers that includes
Kopytoff's piece, Appadurai (1986) talks about dual processes called
'paths' and 'diversions'. Paths are the customary, or taken-for-granted
uses and trajectories of objects. Such uses are almost culturally prescribed,
and seen to be embodied transparently in the design of goods. For exam¬
ple, one might perceive that there is one particular path for a mundane

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

105

object like a safety pin, limited to particular uses and contexts related to
clothing repair and construction. Diversions are where such 'cultural use
paths' are interrupted and modified. One case is the existence of what
Appadurai refers to as 'kingly things' - objects that come to represent the
power, wealth or status of a monarch. In order to maintain the exclusive¬
ness of such commodities, royalty 'enclaves' the object, maintaining
exclusive use within royal contexts only. In more complex modem soci¬
eties, the institutional domain of fashion is perhaps the greatest creator of
such diversions from customary paths. In the safety pin example men¬
tioned above, Dick Hebdige (1979) shows how safety pins were appropri¬
ated by punks in the 1970s and used in shocking ways, such as for nose
piercing or as a type of perverse decorative broach. Along similar lines,
they wore plastic bags as if they were clothing. We can also identify other
examples within the domain of fashion. Major sneaker brands have
looked back in time and place in order to find new ways of presenting the
sneaker to contemporary youth. For example, wrestling boots and also
basketball boots from the 1970s have been re-released by major footwear
companies for the current youth fashion market, as part of a 'vintage' or
'classic' themed range. How is it that a boot worn by wrestlers in the 1970s
could find a new life as a fashion sneaker of the current era? In a different
realm altogether, the building material corrugated iron was long estab¬
lished in Australia as material used in light, working-class homes, and
almost exclusively as a roofing material. Its undulating shape and light,
tin appearance made it perfect for channelling rain from roofs. Yet, half a
century later, it is used as a feature material within cutting edge architec¬
tural practice. The qualities which once strictly defined its functionality
are now perceived as being desirable, aesthetic - and heritage - qualities
which must very much go 'on show' in order to assert the individuality
and cultural astuteness of the owner.

Art objects and the transformation of meaning

There are parallels to this type of cultural recirculation and recontextuali-
sation within the art world. Marcel Duchamp is famous for his early
twentieth-century series of 'readymade' or 'already made' sculptures,
which included a snow shovel, a urinal, a bicycle wheel and a comb,
amongst other things. Duchamp's interventions using material culture
led to new ways of conceiving art, of negating art, and of understanding
objects. For example: how does Duchamp make these objects art? Are
they already art? How does changing context matter, in defining the
nature of these objects? The trick Duchamp plays seems squarely about
manipulating the symbolic meaning of objects by altering context: consid¬
ered outside of typical context an object can seem absurd, for it is without
the appropriate cultural props to provide a meaningful framework of
interpretation. As Michel Leiris (2005) points out in his commentary on

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Theoretical Approaches

Duchamp's arts and crafts practice, the core issue at stake is the legitimacy of
representation, and its relation to recognition, repetition and their place
within an aesthetic language. Along similar lines, the contemporary artist
Jeff Koons has presented everyday objects like a basketball, or a porcelain
puppy, as art. In the case of the basketball the object is presented in a glass
case, though apparently unadorned by the artist's hand. In the case of
Koon's porcelain sculptures, the skill is in actually affording the mundane
object a sense of being too real, emphasising and indeed inflating its ordi¬
nariness and kitsch qualities.

In contrast to these unconventional (perhaps postmodern) artworks, in
a piece on the career of August Rodin's sculpture 'The Burghers of Calais',
Richard Swedberg (2005) illustrates the trajectory of a strongly modem,
utopian artwork. Originally commissioned in 1884 by the City of Calais
and first shown in 1895, the sculpture celebrates a local heroic act. The
story represented by the monument goes like this: in 1347 during the
Hundred Years' War between England and France, King Edward III held
reign over the town of Calais, starving its citizens. He eventually threat¬
ened the citizenry they all would be killed unless six citizens presented
themselves to him. Rodin's sculpture depicts the beginning of the six
volunteers' journey to Edward III. The journey ended well, as the Queen
persuaded Edward to spare the men, while Edward went about recon¬
structing the town according to his supposedly peaceful vision. The
interesting question Swedberg deals with is: why has Rodin's sculpture
been used as a monument throughout the world, including many nations
in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia? First, Swedberg argues
that the monument gained popularity in its local context because it
helped to forge an identity for the city of Calais, and also functioned as a
representation of a collective ideal of fraternity and solidarity for the
nation of France, a way to understand and define painful histories and
glorious futures. More generally, the sculpture appeals to honourable
sentiments within modern individuals, related to a form of civil courage
that helps to forge collective solidarity. The sculpture reminds ordinary
citizens that to cultivate and maintain a civil society involves ordinary
people making a variety of sacrifices for the good of others. Such sacri¬
fices may be of the most mundane sort, but they may also be linked to
heroism of ordinary citizens: the sculpture tells a very modern tale of
social solidarity, suggesting to citizenry that 'the heroes of our time are
not like the lonely and extraordinary individuals that you find on the top
of pedestals in sculptures from earlier centuries' (Swedberg, 2005: 64).
This explains how the sculpture became a highly mobile - perhaps iconic -
representation, appealing to the heart of the modern spirit through the
twentieth century.

Jeffrey Alexander (forthcoming) makes a similar point to Swedberg in his
discussion of iconic experience and viewing Alberto Giacometti's sculpture
'Standing Woman'. Alexander's goal for his reading is more ambitious than
Swedberg's, in that it relates to a general theoretical approach in sociology

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107

which gives priority to cultural experience, and in this case, the aesthetic
component of such experience. Moreover, Alexander goes to more trouble
to inquire into the aesthetic terrain of the sculpture and the experience of a
viewer who stands before it, such as features of surface and depth, close¬
ness and distance, and how these play out in the interpretation of the object.
Alexander argues that it is through these aesthetic techniques that
Giacometti draws the viewer into the object, affording access to the object's
iconic meaning. The surface appearance of Giacometti's object is its expres¬
sive feature that is in turn 'felt' by the viewer. The object becomes a univer¬
sal symbol, a 'collective representation' that draws us 'to the heart of the
world' (Alexander, forthcoming: 10-11). In developing his argument,
Alexander proposes an interesting model for understanding how such feel¬
ings of material attachment work. He proposes that what makes an object
iconic is the way it affords movement from surface to depth - a form of
'immersion'. Immersion involves a dual process: one called 'subjectifica-
tion' where people are able to seemingly draw an object into themselves,
transforming it from object to subject, and allowing it to take on a life
whereby one no longer sees the object itself, but 'oneself, one's projections,
one's convictions and beliefs' (Alexander, forthcoming: 11). Simultaneously,
through a process called 'materialisation', a person is drawn into an object,
effectively becoming it, or what it is seen to stand for. What exists is not an
object, nor a person, but a oneness of material and human, united by an
emotional connection. Such connections - with material objects - are the
basis for the performance and learning of cultural norms and discourses,
becoming the basis for collective life and the negotiation of individuality
within the collective.

Conclusion: evaluating cultural approaches to objects

Before proceeding to evaluate what I have called the cultural perspective
in material culture studies, consider the following recap of its general
features:

• First, remember that the cultural approach is almost the complete
opposite of the Marxist and critical approaches, though it shares
some important similarities with the structural and semiotic traditions.
While the Marxist and critical approaches altogether obliterate the
possibility of people finding meaning in objects (objects were instead
the embodiments of exploitive capitalist relations and any perceived
meaning would be evidence of a false consciousness), the cultural
approach emphasises the meaningfulness of objects. While the structural
and semiotic approach insists on the relationality of object-signs within
a culturally embedded system of linguistic communication, the cul¬
tural approach takes a slightly more open approach to meaning making.
In a sense, the idea that there are cultural codes, narratives and symbols

108

Theoretical Approaches

that function like a cultural language is taken for granted - it is not
considered necessary to trace over the ground covered by Saussure,
and Levi-Strauss particularly, in order to develop what are almost
scientific models of symbolic communication. This was the task of an
earlier era. The cultural approach instead emphasises the meaning¬
making capacities of objects, but does not do so using a strict semiotic
model of communication.

• A key part of the conceptual platform of the cultural approach is the
Durkheimian idea that cultural life operates principally through the
formation, mediation and maintenance of classifications and cate¬
gories. It is through making classifications about people, objects and
events, that people come to define the boundaries of their community
and their own values and beliefs. Durkheim proposed that the binary
operators of sacred and profane form the basis of such classifications.

• These classifications are not merely technico-rational, mentalistic
accomplishments. People make classifications in their everyday life
and are thus akin to scientists, but the categories that are formed
acquire a moral force: they have an emotional weight that begs the
application of sanctions, penalties and general boundary maintenance
work to ensure the integrity of these categories.

• Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood provided the first direct appli¬
cation of Durkheimian thinking to the field of contemporary con¬
sumption. Douglas (an anthropologist) and Isherwood (an economist)
argued that we must begin to move away from thinking about the
functional or economistic aspects of consumer objects, and move
toward the idea that such objects were really good for thinking. That is,
recalling Levi-Strauss's idea of bonnes d penser, objects allow people to
understand themselves and their lives, others and culture at large.

• This approach insists, after the work of Daniel Miller, that contempo¬
rary consumption behaviours are not intrinsically individualist, ersatz
or depthless, but are culturally meaningful behaviours worthy of aca¬
demic attention.

To what extent does the cultural approach offer a viable set of theoretical

resources for understanding material culture? The following arguments

can be made in favour of such theoretical models.

• The major strength of this body of work is that it doesn't assume
objects in general to be peripheral to the constitution of society and cul¬
ture. What's more, it provides a much needed corrective to the modem
assumption that objects enslave and empty-out via rationalisation,
exploitation and technological determinism, and the postmodern
assumption that consumer objects represent little but evidence of an
individualist, accumulative and ironic culture. The cultural approach
maintains that in order to understand the contours of culture even the
most banal or trivial objects need attention.

The Material Representing the Cultural Universe

109

• In assuming even the most mundane types of consumption and the
most ordinary of individual consumers are agents of cultural construc¬
tion, this approach strongly emphasises the agentic aspects of con¬
sumption, and constructive, agentic potential of consumers. In doing
so, it turns on its head a century or more of critical and Marxist inspired
theory and commentary that suggests the opposite: that consumers are
cultural dupes, and that they are exploited.

• The cultural approach allows the introduction of questions of emotion
and desire to come into play in the way sociologists understand people's
relations to objects. Questions of rationality and instrumentality are not
insisted upon, leaving theorists to more imaginative and potentially
productive ways of understanding people-object relations, and the
way they are constitutive of cultural forms.

The following argument is commonly used criticisms of the cultural

approach.

• There is one major critique of the cultural approach. It is often main¬
tained that the cultural approach lacks sufficient critical power, in the
Marxist sense. That is, it pays too much attention to the operations of
culture, and too little to questions of social-economic structure and
inequality. For example, a more critical approach would require ques¬
tions asked about who makes consumer objects, what type of pay and
employment conditions they work under, and what are the global
flows of such consumer objects?

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Model case studies of how to combine structuralist analysis with a Durkheimian
sensitivity for generative cultural codes is found in Jeffrey Alexander’s (2003) piece
on the computer, and Philip Smith’s (2003) evocative, visceral and fascinating
paper on the guillotine. Along similar lines, Richard Swedberg’s (2005) research
on the Rodin sculpture from the journal Theory, Culture and Society is also a very
interesting case study of how an object comes to represent universal cultural
beliefs and myths across time and space. For fascinating research on the iconog¬
raphy and meaning of the guitar within various interest communities, see Bennett
and Dawe’s collection, Guitar Cultures ( 2001). Especially, consult the introduction
and the chapter by Ryan and Peterson on the iconography of the guitar and types
of guitar owners/players. Though I have briefly summarised the key ideas of Daniel
Miller’s book A Theory of Shopping (1998a) in this chapter, I’d recommend you
have a further look at this to get a strong anthropological account of the meanings
of contemporary shopping behaviours, which after all are expeditions dedicated to
collecting consumable objects. For a work that links consumer brands to cultural
mythologies, see Douglas B. Holt’s How Brands Become Icons (2004).

PART III

OBJECTS IN ACTION

SIX

Objects and Distinction. The Aesthetic Field
and Expressive Materiality

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter looks at how objects come to acquire and represent

status, aesthetic value and personal taste. It has four main sections

which:

• give an historical introduction to how objects are linked to social
status

• review the work of Immanuel Kant on how people judge beauty in
objects

• summarise the work of Bourdieu on taste and the social implica¬
tions of aesthetic judgement

• review the work of key modem theorists of fashion - Simmel,
Veblen and Blumer - and their relevance to questions of social
class, individualism, desire and collective belonging.

Introduction: Status and the taste for ‘the beautiful thing’ in
consumer societies

Historical accounts of consumption practice (McCracken, 1988; McKendrick
et al., 1992 [1982]; Mukerji, 1983; Williams, 1982) illustrate that consuming
things is now - and has been for at least quite some time - as much a
sphere for establishing social difference and position, and constructing
self-identity, than it is a practice of sustenance. It is circumspect to remem¬
ber that the use of novel objects for the explicit purpose of demonstrating
cultivated distinction or personal style is not the only reason for, or mode
of, consumption. Yet, contemporary consumer society is based upon the
materialisation of distinction: the coding of cultural and status difference in
objects themselves.

114

Objects in Action

In an early paper Erving Goff man (1951) analyses the role of objects in
managing status. For Goffman, co-operative, effective social activity was
dependent on the harmonious differentiation and integration of different
social statuses. Society requires this intersubjective communication of
status, and status symbols are used by people to divide the world into
categories of people. According to Goffman there are two principle roles for
status symbols. First, status symbols have categorical functions in that they
serve to distinguish and 'socially place' the person who uses the symbol.
For example, in a consumer society we may read the brand or style of a
watch as a symbol of status, or, we may also read particular occupational
symbols which signal credentials like a lab coat, a stethoscope or a framed
degree certificate. As well, Goffman says status symbols can serve expres¬
sive functions, relating to a person's own style, taste or cultural values, as
either real or aspired to. In Goffman's vision, social life is underpinned by
this type of symbolic circulation of objects and people in order to affirm,
identify or express one's social status. This way, in advanced consumer
society, finely tuned knowledges of the subtle differences in cultural
meaning of objects that consumers interact with can become the means
for social expression, social identity cultivation and social differentiation.

How is it that objects have come to embody desires and signify status,
acting as proxies for a person's identity, dreams and social position?
Drawing upon historical research. Grant McCracken (1988) has provided
a careful analysis of three important historical eras to illustrate some of
the ways and reasons consumer objects were increasingly desired as signs
of status over the past few centuries.

(2) Elizabethan England in the sixteenth century. In the last quarter of the six¬
teenth century Elizabeth I used expenditure for the purpose of displaying,
and establishing, the wealth and status of the monarch. In this era, the
noblemen of England decorated their residences extravagantly, took new
residences in London, and engaged in feverish rounds of hospitality to
establish their own status, pre-eminence and social standing in order to
gain the respect and attention of Queen Elizabeth. As McCracken puts it,
describing the visit of the English nobleman to the court and London:

When each nobleman was drawn to court to bid for the Queen’s attention, he
was drawn away from the locality in which he was the undisputed apex of a
steeply hierarchical society ... this nobleman was suddenly one of a number
of individuals with a claim to pre-eminence. His reaction to this new crowd of
status-seekers was one of anxiety-stricken concern for his honour, his social
standing, and his relationship to the monarch. It was almost inevitable that he
should have been drawn into a riot of consumption. (1988: 12)

Rounds of status competition institutionalised these inflationary tourna¬
ments of consumption, and objects increasingly represented the monarch's
legitimacy and status, aspirations of the kingdom, and the aura of its lead¬
ers. Increasingly complex regimes of value developed where differences

Objects and Distinction

115

in social status were signified by differences in the stylistic and aesthetic
properties of objects. The preferences of the upper-classes dictated what
was deemed fashionable, and their choices 'trickled-down' to every¬
one else.

(2) Consumption in eighteenth-century England. The world of consumer
goods expanded dramatically during this period, in line with new pro¬
duction methods and new construction materials. Along with this, the
opportunities for demonstrating social distinction enhanced the process -
strongly stratified society, the opportunity to emulate the upper classes
through cheaper goods, and increasing general wealth. Consumer objects
became tokens of one's status. Consumption patterns also shifted -
further from need and closer to fashion and wants, fashion cycles developed
and sped up, networks of shops expanded, and shopping became as
much a mode of sociality as an expedition for provisions. One of the well-
known figures during this period was Josiah Wedgwood, whose ceramics
are still widely produced, consumed and valued today. Wedgwood care¬
fully marketed his goods to the upper classes, hoping those lower down
would eventually follow. McCracken argues that Wedgwood was the first
to fully understand and harness this trickle-down effect: the desire of
those lower in the social hierarchy to emulate those above through the
possession and display of status tokens. This type of emulatory dynamic
was associated with the institutionalisation of fashion cycles, whereby
aesthetic and stylistic features of objects were increasingly central to the
circulation of objects. As McCracken (1988: 19) comments: 'That an object
had not exhausted its usefulness was no longer sufficient grounds for its
preservation. Whether it could satisfy the more important condition
of fashionableness was now the deciding factor'. This shift precipitated
broader social and cultural changes: goods were increasingly semiotically
rich, selfhood was linked to possession and display of objects, city spaces
transformed to cater for new interests in browsing, flaneurie, and public
display of objects, people increasingly purchased for themselves not just
their families, and increasingly consumers desired to be instructed about
the 'right' ways, and things, to consume.

(3) Consumption in the nineteenth century. In this period there was not so
much a new consumer boom - this had already happened - but a deep¬
ening and maturing of the consumer ethic established in the eighteenth
century. The production of new consumer items increasingly became the
motor of economic growth. Also, new modes for disseminating consumer
objects developed, especially marketing in order to add 'desire value' to
goods. Further, the department store was originated, which was associ¬
ated not only with more elaborate and ornate modes of presenting con¬
sumer objects, but new modes of urban sociality which were increasingly
democratic. Objects began to be encoded with more nuanced meanings,
other than simply 'upper class emulation'. For example, department
stores of the era developed interiors that signified different ethnic.

116

Objects in Action

lifestyle and mythical themes. Objects and their modes of display were
increasingly aestheticised. The consumer revolution of the period could
not have found better housing, according to McCracken:

This new institution helped change the nature of aesthetics by which goods
were marketed, introducing powerfully persuasive techniques in film and
decor that are still being refined. The department store also changed the very
nature of the place in which people consumed, what they consumed, the
information they needed to consume, and the styles of life to which this new
consumption was devoted. (1988: 29)

This chapter considers how theorists have sought to explain the increas¬
ingly status-loaded nature of objects through the concepts of taste and
fashion. The trends, that historical research has shown to exist in previous
centuries, have deepened over the twentieth century. The rationale for a
sociological study of taste becomes clear in this context: making choices is
a fundamental skill, perhaps a 'duty' (Bauman, 1988), required for people
who live in a consumer society. Taste is a core component of being a per¬
son in a consumer society. It is a basic capacity in consumer societies
because 'taste is the basis of all that one has - people and things - and all
that one is for others' (Bourdieu, 1984: 56). The rationale for a conven¬
tional sociological study of taste is that once these consumption choices
are subjected to scrutiny, it is found that people do not possess the same
objects or things - substantial variation does exist in regard to the choices
people make and the visual-spatial ensemble they create on the basis of
such choices (after Baudrillard, 1981: 34). Furthermore, the analysis of this
difference will yield information that illuminates elemental information
about contemporary society and the nature of people's lives within it.
With this in mind, the broad aim of the current chapter is to review,
analyse and assess theoretical perspectives on taste and aesthetics as they
impact on our appreciation and use of objects. The basic question these
theories address is: zvhat are the social processes by which people come to give
value to objects, ascribe them status affirming capacity, and come to count them
as important in defining the nature of selfhood and social identity?

Four theoretical variations which address these questions are discussed
and analysed in this chapter. The theoretical basis of each can be captured
by keywords, which serve as a summary point for each position. The four
models examined are characterised as: (i) the pure taste model, (ii) the
class taste model, (iii) the emulation model, and (iv) the collective model.

Kant’s philosophical aesthetics and sensing beauty in objects
(the pure taste model)

The questions of what object is beautiful or possesses good taste, how to
judge such beauty and taste in objects, and what criteria is to apply in its
judgement, are central concerns of philosophical aesthetics. The heyday

Objects and Distinction

117

of such theories of taste was the eighteenth century - Kant, Voltaire,
Hume, Cooper and Burke each wrote about the nature of taste, the expe¬
rience of the sublime and beautiful, the weighing of value in judgements,
and the experience of pleasure or displeasure in relation to things (Schaper,
1983). The philosophy of aesthetic choice, and its sub-concepts - taste,
beauty, pleasure and the sublime - approach the question of taste in a
different way to sociology It is not the point of this chapter to distinguish
itself through a unique philosophical reading of taste, but given much of
the social writing on taste and aesthetics explicitly works from Kant's
model - mostly as a point of departure - it is worthwhile considering the
basic principles of his approach. Philosophical aesthetics tends to focus on
how it is possible to judge something as beautiful or of good taste, the
logical rules of such processes, and the variety of distinguishing types of
pleasure and taste. In addressing such questions, philosophical inquiry is
often characterised - after Kant - as the study of pure taste.

By contrast, the enduring tradition in the sociology of taste, to use
Bourdieu's pointed expression at Kantian versions of aesthetics, is directed
'towards a vulgar critique of pure critiques' (1984: 485). What Bourdieu
makes clear, in the broad tradition of diverse authors such as Veblen
(1899[1934j), Lloyd Warner (Warner and Lunt, 1963; Warner et al., 1963,)
and Goffman (1951), is that pure taste and the aesthetic theoretical system
it is built upon, is in fact a bourgeois aesthetic which has at its base the
refusal of facile cultural goods: things which are judged impure, shallow,
cheap, frivolous or superficial (Bourdieu, 1984: 486). Given Bourdieu's
vigorous engagement with the philosophical variety of aesthetics - the
pointed subtitle of Distinction indicates his desire to generate a healthy
sociological distance from Kant and the idea of a 'pure' aesthetic - it is
worthwhile spending some time elaborating the philosophical account of
aesthetics outlined in Kant.

In Kant's terms, judgements of taste are not based on logical, cognitive
principles. That is, a person cannot objectively assess the beauty of an
object through analytic, mental means. In order to judge what is beautiful,
a purely 'esthetic' judgement must be made. The central component of
this judgement is the feeling of pleasure or displeasure provoked in the
viewer of an object. Moreover, this feeling of pleasure or displeasure must
be 'wholly disinterested' (1952: 12), that is, a person must assess the thing
in 'mere contemplation' (1952: 5), rather than be effected by a sense of the
object's monetary value, or the value of its brand. Kant's notion of the
roles of interest, and especially disinterest, in such judgements is a key
sticking point for Bourdieu (1984: 41), who identifies a popular aesthetic
or working-class aesthetic as contravening Kant's standard of taste
because it is squarely based on the criteria of interest - gratification of
pleasure through the senses, utility or moral position:

Nothing is more alien to popular consciousness than the idea of an aesthetic

pleasure that, to put it in Kantian terms, is independent of the charming of the

senses. (Bourdieu, 1984: 42)

118

Objects in Action

Thus in the Kantian aesthetic universe, where contemplation is emptied
of notions of use, sensuous pleasures or pecuniary influences that might
taint perception of beauty, people are freed to contemplate objects and
judge their pure beauty based on the evocation of stirred feelings. Kant
proceeds in his Second Moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful to contend
that given the satisfaction of the criteria of disinterestedness, a person
can reasonably assume that their assessment of something as beautiful (as
opposed to merely pleasurable in sensual form) has a universal validity
It is here that Kant presents the tacit justification for a refined form of
judgement that he labels 'reflective taste':

Many a thing may be attractive and pleasurable to him; no one cares about
that; but if he declares something to be beautiful, he expects the very same
pleasure of others; he judges not solely for himself, but for everyone, and then
speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. Hence he says, the thing
is beautiful, and he does not count on others agreeing with his judgement of
pleasure because they did so occasionally in the past; rather he demands this
agreement from them. He censures them if they judge differently and denies
them taste, which he demands they should have. (Kant, 1952: 14-5)

The idea of universal validity has application to Kant's notion of a sensus
communis of taste, presented in the Fourth Moment. From a sociological
point of view, this suggestion of a common sense of taste is interesting,
and seems related to later accounts of fashion and taste in the work of
Blumer (1969), and also, though to a lesser degree, in Lyotard (1988). Both
of these contributions are discussed in later parts of this chapter. Gronow
(1997: 88) also draws out these theoretical threads clearly. What Kant
argues is that tastes only seem to make sense, or acquire validity, in refer¬
ence to others. This is so because given satisfaction of the criterion of
disinterestedness, people should not fail to judge beauty in the same way -
there is a harmony in social judgements which assumes an idea of
'common sense':

In any judgement in which we declare something to be beautiful we allow no
one to be of a different opinion. Yet we base our judgement not on concepts,
but solely on our feeling. Hence, the feeling which we place at the foundation
of the judgement of taste is not a private feeling, but a common feeling. Now
this common sense, if it is to serve as this foundation, cannot be grounded on
experience, for it is meant to justify judgements that contain an ‘ought’. The
common sense does not imply that everyone will agree with our judgements;
it implies that everyone ought. I put forward my judgement of taste as an
example of the judgement passed by the common sense and this is why I
ascribe exemplary validity to my judgement. (Kant, 1952: 49)

Kant's notion of sensus communis acknowledges a collective basis for
establishing standards of aesthetic judgement. It prefigures classical soci¬
ological work on the matter of taste communities, and has important
implications for sociological research into the everyday schemes and

Objects and Distinction

119

narratives of taste. Yet, it is difficult to imagine how Kant's analysis of the
judgement of beauty in objects works in a consumer society Is it possible
for people to make judgements of beauty independent of issues like mar¬
keting, brand, perceived status and cost? Such judgements seem reserved
for special contexts where exchange value and symbolic value are effec¬
tively annulled, for example in institutional art galleries where questions
of possession are irrelevant. The other main problem with Kant's proposal
relates to the social implications, and possibility, of making disinterested
judgements. In a society where important social divisions are based in
consumption practices, is this possible? Given this question, it is pertinent
to examine the high modem sociological critique of Kant's ideas in the
work of Pierre Bourdieu.

Objects and class contexts. Bourdieu and the sociological
psychoanalysis of objects (the class taste model)

Currently, any sociological discussion of taste must start by considering
the foundational work of Pierre Bourdieu, directly through his principal
work in the field. Distinction, and also via the theoretical foundation for
sociological practice he has developed in other important works, for exam¬
ple, Outline of a Theory of Practice. Bourdieu's (1984) study of tastes and cul¬
tural consumption is based on surveys and interviews in 1960s' France,
and one of its most important successes was to advance a strongly cultural
and social perspective into the study of taste. In it Bourdieu argued that
'taste' was taken for granted as the natural domain of aesthetes who sup¬
posedly possessed a cultivated eye for assessing beauty. In Bourdieu's
words, the fundamental dispositions that govern our choices can only be
uncovered when '"culture", in the restricted, normative sense of ordinary
usage, is reinserted into "culture", in the broad, anthropological sense and
the elaborated taste for the most refined objects is brought back into rela¬
tion with the elementary taste for the flavours of food' (Bourdieu, 1984: 99).
The work of philosopher Immanuel Kant, to which Bourdieu's position is
naturally contrasted has promoted a long-standing conception of taste that
is thoroughly anti-social in the way it imagines taste to be a disinterested,
pure appreciation of beauty; as though making aesthetic judgements were
a gift of nature. However for Bourdieu, social science has empirically
demonstrated this to be false and has exposed the aesthete's eye to be 'a
product of history reproduced by education' (1984: 3).

Key principles in Bourdieu's account of aesthetic taste

The first point to note about Bourdieu's understanding of taste is that it is
manifested in everything people do and possess: taste is 'the basis of all
that one has - people and things - and all that one is for others' (1984: 56).
That is, taste is not something reserved just for discussion of 'legitimate'
painting, music or literature that is produced and consumed principally

120

Objects in Action

by what might be called the 'dominant' aesthetic classes. Rather, taste
decisions are exercised in all social and personal domains across all social
classes. This includes practical arts like fashion, hairstyles, home decora¬
tion and food preparation, along with leisure activities like reading, sport
and cinema. As well as this, the bottom line of taste practice for Bourdieu
is manifested in the way people present their bodies: 'the body is the most
indisputable materialization of class taste' (1984: 190). The body is a fun¬
damental site for the expression of taste through clothing and hair styles,
objects of adornment, speech and manner. Additionally, the dimensions
and shapes of the body as presented to others reveal the 'embodied' nature
of taste, for example, dimensions like body volume and weight, shape
and posture are clues to the social conditions which manifest them and
the attitudes people hold toward their own body. In summary thus far
then, for Bourdieu, taste is a universal practice because it applies for all
classes of people across social groups, and it is also an inevitable practice
because participation in the social world requires expressions and com¬
mitments of taste.

Two important principles follow as a result of Bourdieu's assertion that
taste plays a role in determining all our interactions in the social and
material world. The first is that the practice of taste takes on an appear¬
ance of being a 'natural' judgement. Judgements of taste are so routinely
pervasive in everyday life, and are determined to such an extent by
people's conditions of existence, that separating social relations from
aesthetic judgements becomes difficult. In this way, taste judgements in
Bourdieu's model come to serve as an aesthetic playing out of social rela¬
tions. Since tastes are so thoroughly incorporated in to people's ways of
being, acting and seeing in consumer society, they take on a 'natural'
appearance and feel. It is this facade of naturalness that has fostered the
ideology that some classes of people naturally possess good taste and oth¬
ers bad. Because inquiries into taste must attempt to uncover the basis of
these highly routinised aesthetic judgements, Bourdieu comments in the
opening to his first chapter of Distinction that 'sociology is rarely more
akin to social psychoanalysis than when it confronts an object like taste'
(1984: 11).

The second consequence of the chronic nature of taste judgements in
consumer society is that there is an 'economy' of preference decisions
available to be understood by the researcher. The economy of cultural
goods is manifested in two ways for the researcher. First, it is identifiable
in the particular combinations of cultural objects that classes of people
consume. For example, Bourdieu's analysis of dominant tastes presented
in a two dimensional plane diagram (1984: 262) show the particular dis¬
tributions of preferences for musical works, composers, domestic interiors
and cooking, plotted along with the degree of cultural and economic cap¬
ital. Likewise, films seen in order of preference by Parisians are mapped
to reveal the distribution of bundles of cinematic preferences held by sec¬
ondary teachers, professions and industrial and commercial employers

Objects and Distinction

121

(1984: 271). The outcome of this cultural preference mapping is the plotting
of a cultural consumption economy, which for Bourdieu is a step along the
way to understanding the space of lifestyles. The economy of preferred
cultural goods, a product of people's tastes, is also manifested in the way
people relate to culture. In Bourdieu's account, taste is not only something
identifiable in zvhat we consume, but also in the way we consume things.
For example, he comments about the consumption strategies of the petit
bourgeoisie that:

The petit bourgeois do not know how to play the game of culture as a game.
They take culture too seriously to go in for bluff or imposture or even for the
distance and casualness which show true familiarity; too seriously to escape
permanent fear or ignorance or blunders, or to side-step tests by responding
with the indifference of those who are not competing or the serene detach¬
ment of those who feel entitled to confess or even flaunt their lacunae.
Identifying culture with knowledge, they think that the cultivated man is one
who possesses an immense fund of knowledge and refuse to believe him
when he professes, in one of those impious jests allowed to a Cardinal, who
can take liberties with the faith forbidden to the parish priest, that, brought
down to its simplest and most sublime expression, it amounts to a relation to
culture. (1984: 330-1)

In Bourdieu's analysis, other social classes relate to cultural objects in
socially unique ways. The bourgeois class's mode of consumption attempts
to emphasise authenticity and naturalness in their relation to culture, as
though it was made especially for them. While bourgeois consumption
may sometimes be permitted to be eccentric, it is held together by a con¬
fidence that goes with a flair for cultivating culture as nature. The bour¬
geois classes typically cultivate an art to living so that, for example, meal
preparation becomes as much an artistic endeavour as a necessity. The
point of such everyday activities that are based in modes of 'artistic con¬
sumption' is that they demand 'pure, pointless expenditure' provided
by the 'rarest and most precious thing of all ... namely, time' (1984: 281).
Alternately, the working class aesthetic is dominated by a rejection of
aestheticisation and the cultivation of an art of living that is founded in
modesty, pragmatism and simplicity generated by 'the taste for necessity':

one sees examples in the behaviour of small craftsmen or businessmen who,
as they themselves say, ‘don’t know how to spend the money they’ve earned’,
or of junior clerical workers, still attached to their peasant or working-class
roots, who get as much satisfaction from calculating how much they have
‘saved’ by doing without a commodity or service (or ‘doing it themselves’) as
they would have got from the thing itself, but who, equally, cannot ever pur¬
chase it without a painful sense of wasting money. Having a million does not
in itself make one able to live like a millionaire. (Bourdieu, 1984: 374)

The final component of Bourdieu's account of taste that must be consid¬
ered (briefly in this instance) is his notion of habitus, the mechanism by

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Objects in Action

which tastes are cultivated and exercised. The habitus is the means by
which people come to develop systems of likes and dislikes, and also the
set of principles and procedures which people use in their relations with
objects and people. In short, it is a set of dispositions, for use in practice,
that orientates individuals in their relations with people and objects in the
social world. The habitus is formed in individuals through historically
and socially situated conditions of its production, it is the 'active present
of past experiences' (Bourdieu, 1990: 54). While the habitus is a product of
a determinate class of conditions, Bourdieu stresses that it retains some
spontaneity and that while a person's habitus will typically direct them
toward particular choices, it does not amount to obedience to rules.
Bourdieu theorises the habitus as both structured and structuring. That is,
it generates the principles by which people are able to classify and organ¬
ise encounters in the social and material world, and it is also structured or
generated by them in so far as these encounters are the product of regu¬
lar associations and shared conditions of existence.

Bourdieu's account of tastes is the most ambitious and thorough yet to
be published. The strengths of his approach in Distinction are multifac¬
eted. Fundamentally, its forte rests on the range of quantitative data avail¬
able to Bourdieu through his survey material and the techniques he
employs in analysing the data. While Frow's (1987) deconstruction of
Bourdieu's complicity in establishing a regime of cultural tastes and value
is compelling in demonstrating the arbitrariness of his cultural categories,
equally so Bourdieu's analysis of social and cultural correspondences
along dimensions of cultural and economic capital is the best empirical
treatment of the social patterns of taste that is available. But perhaps the
most important reason for the work's substantial contribution to the study
of taste is its application of an impressive theoretical basis that was devel¬
oped by Bourdieu through a number of substantial prior works. Bourdieu's
advance from a strong strand of structuralism (1963[1979j) to a more
nuanced synthesis of objective and subjective principles (1977) - which
came to rest on his theories about the role of different forms of capital, the
habitus and dimensions of social space - is impressively operationalised
in Distinction, despite any legitimate criticism which may be made of his
approach.

To a less successful extent though. Distinction employs a range of inter¬
view data and case studies that are found through the text that seek,
though in my opinion ultimately fail, to supplement the quantitative find¬
ings. The question of the stylistic efficacy of such an approach to his qual¬
itative data has been noted, for example by Jenkins, who characterises
Distinction as 'an intriguing pastiche of different blocks of text, pho¬
tographs and diagrams' (Jenkins, 1992: 138). This is suggestive of a wider
issue to do with how Bourdieu treats his qualitative data. Is it meant to
stand alongside the quantitative material in terms of its value for the
work, or is it of secondary importance? The principal way the concept of
taste is operationalised in Distinction is through survey material and

Objects and Distinction

123

quantitative analysis - this is the most efficient way for Bourdieu to
demonstrate his central thesis that what we think of as culture in a natural
form, is in fact class culture. But such a methodological choice is not with¬
out its prejudices - it is not the 'natural' way to study tastes. A qualitative,
open-ended approach to the problem would develop a unique theoretical
treatment of taste that gives at least equal value to the meaning of actors
who can be said to 'practise' taste through their relations with objects.

There are two principal critiques of Bourdieu's approach that are coun¬
terpoints to a more cultural, meaning-oriented account of people-object
relations. The first is Bourdieu's methodological insistence that tastes
be studied 'objectively'. The prevailing means Bourdieu uses to opera¬
tionalise tastes in Distinction is through the idea of 'objectified' tastes. That
is, survey measures are designed as indicators of the concept of taste, in
order to map 'manifest preferences' for particular objects and things. These
indicators are grounded in the principal domains of taste practice: music,
art, literature, food, leisure and clothing. What this approach succeeds in
doing is to map these domains of taste differentiation along lines of cultural
and economic capital, and essentially, the point comes down to the matter
of class. The value of such an approach should not be wholly discounted,
but a different emphasis appreciated. Such a methodology affords the
description of social patterns of the indicators chosen to represent 'tastes' -
that is, of accounting for the things people possess and relate to - and in
Bourdieu's case, provides evidence for his ideas about social reproduction
and cultural domination. However, at worst, tastes become reified as cul¬
tural artefacts; and a creative, active process is reduced to 'knowing' or 'not
knowing', 'having' or 'not having' particular cultural objects and knowl¬
edges. Such a methodological choice does not value interrogation of the
subjective, hermeneutic aspects of tastes, ignores process, and is obliged to
look over the tacit forms of knowledge involved in accomplishing and pos¬
sessing 'tastes'. In addition, and perhaps as a corollary of the inability of
survey methodology to come to grips with taste as a cultural practice, such
an approach misses nearly altogether the collective processes associated with
the everyday practice of taste. In summary then, Bourdieu's methodology
emphasises tastes as a form of capital available for class differentiation.
Such a focus supports his larger project of uncovering the social reproduc¬
tive role involved in the assertion of a dominant taste, but in taking such a
position it excludes the possibility of accounting for forces of integration
through the social circulation of collective sentiments.

Being in fashion: social honour and the display of booty
(the emulation model)

The legacy of Bourdieu's account is that one's tastes are principally seen
as a product of social class: choices that are contingent on upbringing,
education and social learning, rather than pure disinterested judgements.

124

Objects in Action

This is the shattering power of Distinction - the sociological dissection
of taken-for-granted claims of aesthetic infallibility. But to some degree,
Bourdieu's Distinction has become too influential in the field of taste.
Distinction remains a superior piece of critical sociological analysis of cul¬
ture, but its dominance in the field has pushed earlier and other contribu¬
tions to the margins. These have been either under-valued or forgotten,
but their central sociological questions have never been dealt with in a
satisfactory way.

The following section of this chapter moves away from the Kant-
Bourdieu debate, and conceptualises some of the classical sociological
writing on matters of taste, fashion and style. The critical power of
Bourdieu's approach is missing from such earlier accounts, however,
what is gained in these works are insights into the social dynamics of taste
processes. Two key strands in classical studies of taste and fashion are
identified. The first, best represented by Simmel and Veblen, has an inter¬
est in the public negotiation of taste and the social role of fashion. It is dis¬
tinguished however, by the prominence of an elite-mass model of taste
which relies heavily on notions of emulation, class distinction, imitation
and conspicuousness. The second skein in this literature, marked by
Blumer's (1969) article on collective tastes, emphasises the communal
negotiation of style and taste, apart from the need for distinction and
emulation. Admittedly, the model presented by Blumer is rather vague
on specific mechanisms relating to the negotiation of such sentiments.
However, he provides an updated, symbolic foundation for consideration
of the collective dimension of taste. We turn first to consider the elite-mass
emulation account of taste.

Like much of his work, Simmel's analysis of fashion and style is essen¬
tially an attempt to understand processes that propelled modernity, and
in turn, their impact on the psycho-social development of the modem
person. Fashion and style therefore, came to represent much more than
merely clothes, home decoration or jewellery; they were fundamental
processes of modern social life. Processes of conflict, compromise, eleva¬
tion and adaption, all serve the basic Simmelian dialectic: generality/
uniformity versus individuality /differentiation. Though fashion and
taste represent unique conceptual components of a contemporary analy¬
sis of choice, for Simmel (like Kant and later Blumer), fashion and taste
are central elements in one social-aesthetic process. Fashion was a kind of
public playing out of taste mechanisms - it was a domain where levels of
public taste were constantly established, then superseded (1997a: 194).
Imitation was a fundamental component of this process, because it was
the central practice or technique for individuals to orient themselves to
the social. Because it involved reflection and mindless copying, Simmel
characterised this central component of fashion as at once 'a child of
thought and thoughtlessness' (1997a: 188). For the modern person, imita¬
tion wasn't only a negative thing, for it did free the individual from the
responsibility of maintaining self and the work of generating an authentic

Objects and Distinction

125

individual style. However, in the process of copying, the modem imitator
forfeited creativity and genuine self-purpose. The modern fashion imita¬
tor was merely a 'vessel of social contexts' (Simmel, 1997a: 188).

Given imitation was such a fundamental process in fashion, and hence
a characteristic force of modernity as well, there must be a social group
whose fashions served as models available to be imitated. It is because of
this important demarcation between those who set the fashion agenda
and those who followed, that Simmel's analysis of fashion is largely a
class-based model of emulation, where the lower classes constantly
sought to imitate upper class fashions. In fact, Fred Davis (1992: 111) sug¬
gests that Simmel's idea of fashion is a rather more subtle version of
the classical trickle-down model. What Simmel goes on to argue is that
fashion, in its most pure form (that is, its latest version), is the domain of
the upper classes. Technically, the lower class can possess few genuine
fashions of their own, and thus perpetually occupy the role of imitator
most easily. Because fashion is the relentless striving for a social balance
between differentiation and integration, fashions constantly change as the
lower classes begin to effectively imitate the fashions of the upper classes.
The ruthless striving for difference is frantic, though it is a one-way
process only - always the lower classes look to the upper classes for the
direction of fashion. Fashion is thus a supremely modern tool for differ¬
entiation that has a unique power to set in place a class-based dialectic of
destruction and creative vitality that was ultimately based upon zero-sum
principles.

The very character of fashion demands that it should be exercised at one time
only by a portion of the given group, the great majority being merely on the
road to adopting it. As soon as an example has been universally adopted, that
is, as soon as anything that was originally done by only a few has really come
to be practiced by all - as is the case in certain portions of our apparel and in
various forms of social conduct - we no longer speak of fashion. As fashion
spreads, it gradually goes to its doom. (Simmel, 1957 [1904]: 547)

In his celebrated essay on fashion, Simmel suggests that there are a number
of groups who more conspicuously engage in the search for fashionability.
First are women, who are denied opportunities to express individuality in
other civil and social spheres, and have to rely on fashion as a means of
asserting a meaningful social personality. In addition, Simmel suggests that
young people in particular are prone to display singular fashion behaviours
(1997a: 201). But most of all, the middle classes are the real force behind the
fashion dynamic. The lower 'masses' 'are difficult to set in motion and slow
to develop' (1997a: 202), and on other hand, the highest social stratum are
conservative, archaic and fear change (1997a: 202). The vitality rests with
the middle classes, who have a psychological drive to scale social strata,
and discretionary resources to achieve such an end.

The comparison of Simmel to contemporary work in postmodern con¬
sumer culture becomes clearer here, and is a feature worth commenting

126

Objects in Action

upon. Many of the ideas developed by Simmel have been emphasised as
central components of the postmodern Zeitgeist - the frantic hunt for
novelty (1957[1904]: 545), the relentless striving for difference (1957[1904]:
546), the elaboration of fashion in multiple domains of social life
(1957[1904]: 548), the playful nature of fashion (1997a: 194), and the inten¬
sified subjectivism and individuality of the times that Simmel emphasised
in his work on style (1997b: 216). Such a list would clearly fit quite com¬
fortably in contemporary characterisations of consumer culture found in
the work of Featherstone (1987), Jameson (1991J1984J), or Lash and Urry
(1994); though of course the central question in such a comparison would
remain one of velocity and intensity, which is a more difficult proposition
to empiricise.

Simmel provides a nuanced, important account of the sociological
processes of fashion. His far-reaching project remained an examination of
modem tensions of individuality and integration, and Simmel's analysis
of fashion provides a classical psycho-social version of this 'adaption'
problem. Simmel's model usefully emphasises the way that all excursions
into fashion (including an anti-fashion stance) are techniques or resources
for individuals to orient themselves to social forces. In this way, his model
is classically social. The primary mechanism in Simmel's model of fashion
is emulation. The fiscal power and psychological desire to engage with
fashion is seen to lie with the middle classes. Those in the lower strata
(presumably including the middle classes) seek status through imitation,
or copying, of the upper classes, who are in a position to control the direc¬
tion of fashion. This stance is problematic in a couple of ways. First, its
assumption is that a motive for action is exclusion (by the upper strata)
and emulation (by the middle and lower stratas). While Simmel shares
some common ground with Bourdieu here, there have been serious recent
challenges to such a position (for example, Halle, 1993 and Lamont, 1992),
that assert mechanisms of aesthetics, judgement and taste are more com¬
plex than the distinction-emulation model suggests. Second, and this
draws on central aspects of Blumer's (1969) critique, Simmel's analysis of
fashion is in an important way staunchly modern - his construction of
dichotomous social strata (principally upper, and then those in the lower
strata), his assumption that lower classes have no genuine tastes or fash¬
ions (in contrast to Bourdieu and ideas about working-class tastes), and
his lack of attention to the way particular taste (sub-)cultures could effect
the implicit assumption of a direct hierarchy of desirable fashions and cul¬
tural values, mean that his model requires substantial reworking to fit
contemporary trends, however useful his sociological insights may be.

In Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899J1934]) there is
a more vulgar, witty and venomous expression of the elite-mass emula¬
tion model. While Simmel impresses with craftsmanship, subtlety and
sociological force in the proposition of a class-based model of emulation,
Veblen 'grinds away' (Davis, 1992: 111) relentlessly on the central idea of
pecuniary honour. Both Veblen and Simmel however, tend to share a

Objects and Distinction

127

vision of public taste that is fundamentally charged by distinctions of
class and the psychological attraction of aesthetic difference that only
money can cultivate. The interesting theoretical component of Veblen's
work arrives early in the form of an historical periodisation that provides
the platform for an elaboration of the pecuniary Zeitgeist of the times: in
conjunction with the expanding trend of ownership in the contemporary
phase of modem capitalism which drives people in a struggle for posses¬
sion of various goods, a leisure class emerges whose primary skill is the
accumulation and display of 'booty' which bestows a surplus of social
reputability via pecuniary means.

In Veblen's model perpetual referencing or comparison to others is a cru¬
cial factor. People were chronically restless in their invidious comparison -
once they reached the average standard of pecuniary reputability, ever
higher targets were set. The person of status thus accrues social honour
through being a connoisseur of tasteful objects. This person also had the
responsibility of honing his own manner and carriage to reflect 'an air of
leisurely opulence and mastery' (1899[1934j: 49). In Veblen's view, sys¬
tems of pure aesthetic value became skewed in such a social arrangement.
Cost was commonly substituted as a measure of aesthetic worth:

. . . any valuable object in order to appeal to our sense of beauty must conform
to the requirements of beauty and expensiveness both. But this is not all.
Beyond this the canon of expensiveness also effects our tastes in such a way
as to inextricably blend the marks of expensiveness, in our appreciation, with
the beautiful features of the object, and to subsume the resultant effect under
the head of an appreciation of beauty simply. The marks of expensiveness
come to be accepted as beautiful features of the expensive articles. (Veblen,

1 899[1 934]: 130)

This leads Veblen to a caustic dissection of pecuniary tastes in a variety of
popular domains - flowers, lawns and pastures, animals and clothing are
his main targets. Shots at fashion are rife:

Among these everyday facts is the well-known liking which all men have for
the styles that are in vogue at any given time. A new style comes into vogue
and remains in favour for a season, and, at least so long as it is a novelty, peo¬
ple very generally find the new style attractive. The prevailing fashion is felt to
be beautiful...

It is extremely doubtful if any one could be induced to wear such a con¬
trivance as the high hat of civilised society, except for some urgent reason
based on other than aesthetic grounds. (Veblen, 1 899[1 934]: 177, 132)

The key idea in Veblen's account of consumption, fashion and taste is that
people are strongly motivated to display pecuniary honour, and ulti¬
mately to forge a social difference to other classes. A principal point
underlying his discussion is that the aesthetic tenets of simplicity and
functionality are sacrificed for the sake of pecuniary canons of taste, and

128

Objects in Action

cycles of fashion were merely periodic phases where ugliness was heaped
upon ugliness (Veblen, 1899[1934]: 177). No claims to an enduring or 'clas¬
sical' pure aesthetic mattered as garnishing pecuniary honour and man¬
aging cultural distance through fashion was an inescapable motivation of
the contemporary mode of capitalism.

The collective sentiment in aesthetic tastes: fashion objects
and social solidarity (the collective model)

A strong interest in the sociological nature of fashion processes is a hall¬
mark of Simmel's analysis. In fact, Simmel's analysis of fashion and style
are key pieces in his attempt to understand the process of sociation and
the central forces of social adaption and integration. More than any oth¬
ers, Simmel's writing on fashion emphasises this process most expertly.
But there is a problematic element in Simmel's elaboration of the fashion
process, and it centres on the way he conceives the social mechanisms and
dynamics, which drive the direction of fashion and taste. Centrally, emu¬
lation and imitation were seen to direct a dual class system of fashion,
where the lower classes copied the upper classes. Simmel thus focuses too
heavily on the aspirational and emulationary elements of taste dynamic,
at the expense of a more collective model where a diverse range of social
and cultural factors could be seen to direct public tastes.

In part, Simmel's emphasis on incessant cycles of emulation and imita¬
tion as the dens ex machina of tastes is a product of his times: class systems
were more starkly defined and more obvious than today, and there were
relatively fewer opportunities for consumption, which meant that tastes
were not as freely available to be 'purchased' as they are in the contempo¬
rary era. Nevertheless, while Simmel's writing on fashion mechanisms do
not share the sometimes crudely simplistic characterisations of Veblen,
they do concur in the way emulation and class difference generate funda¬
mental modes of taste.

By way of contrast, Blumer's (1969) theory of fashion offers a more
nuanced treatment of fashion and taste mechanisms than earlier theorists.
While class differentiation was seen to drive fashion in conventional
accounts, Blumer sought to elaborate a collective, almost market-driven
dimension as the key element in the fashion and taste dynamic. In the
first place, Blumer's analysis is an invitation to sociologists to take fash¬
ion seriously, and to grant it a significant place in any theorisation of
modernity. While Simmel was (1957[1904]: 203) also cognisant of the
way fashion was increasingly manifested in diverse social forms associ¬
ated with the modern economy, Blumer's analysis - over half a century
later - showed a more keen sense of how aesthetic work was becoming
crucial to economic progress, and in some ways, is a prefiguring of con¬
temporary notions of aestheticisation (see Featherstone, 1990; Lash and
Urry, 1994). The core to Blumer's (1969) case is his critique of Simmel's

Objects and Distinction

129

essay on fashion, and the proposition of a different model of fashion,
which essentially posited a unique conception of the mechanisms that
shape fashions. The essence of Blumer's theory is that fashion and taste
are formed collectively, rather than set by privileged elites as Simmel
had earlier suggested.

On the basis of extensive observation of the women's fashion industry
in Paris, Blumer identified a key feature of fashion to be 'an intensive
process of selection' (1969: 278). Buyers in the industry developed a
sharpened sense of discrimination 'which guided and sensitized their
perceptions, and which channelled their judgements and choices' (1969:
279). What Blumer identified in the buyers was evidence of a common
sense of the direction of public taste - a reading of codes, symbols and
values inherent in new fashions which involved both an orientation to,
and extension of, accepted fashions and tastes. In Simmel's earlier version
of the mechanism of taste and fashion, the elite are centrally important as
they determine the direction of public tastes. In contrast, Blumer charac¬
terised the elite as incorporated into the emergence of new forms as much
as the lower classes. They have a desire to be acceptable to emergent
forms of public taste; to be in fashion is the key motivation.

The fashion mechanism appears not in response to a need of class differen¬
tiation and class emulation but in response to a wish to be in fashion, to
be abreast of what has good standing, to express new tastes which are
emerging in a changing world. These are the changes that seem to be called
for in Simmel’s formulation. They are fundamental changes. They shift fash¬
ion from the fields of class differentiation to the area of collective selection
and center its mechanism in the process of such selection. This process of
collective selection represents an effort to choose from among competing
styles or models those which match developing tastes, those which ‘click’, or
those which - to revert to my friends, the buyers - ‘are stunning’. (Blumer,
1969: 282)

Blumer characterises the mechanism of fashion as one of 'collective
selection'. Selection is the social process of arrival at a 'collective taste',
and while Blumer posits a model of how this process might work, by his
own admission it remains relatively vague and mysterious (1969: 282)
and in need of further empirical treatment; however, this does not
prohibit him claiming that this mystery 'does not contradict in any way
that it takes place' (1969: 282). The social process of selecting tastes is
described by Blumer almost like an auction of competing tastes in the
social-aesthetic marketplace, where elite and mass groups pick and
choose from emerging differentiations of forms and values according to
their own needs:

This common sensitivity and taste is analogous on the subjective side to a
‘universe of discourse’. Like the latter, it provides a basis for a common
approach to the world and for handling and digesting the experiences the

130

Objects in Action

world yields. The value of a pliable and re-forming body of common taste to
meet a shifting and developing world is apparent. (Blumer, 1968: 344)

It is as if each acceptance or rejection of a new style or object constitutes
an economic vote for the public direction of taste:

The transformation of taste, of collective taste, results without question from
the diversity of experience that occurs in social interaction in a complex and
moving world. It leads, in turn, to an unwitting groping for suitable forms of
expression, in an effort to move in a direction which is consonant with the
movement of modern life in general. (Blumer, 1969: 282)

Blumer, then, provides the best developed account yet of how tastes are
framed and formed by a collective, seemingly marketised, process of
selection built on a common sensitivity to emergent styles and tastes.
Blumer 's own sensitivity to the symbolic basis and interactionist qualities
of taste formation puts the study of tastes into a different domain than say,
the class model developed by Bourdieu. Blumer 's theory suggests that
analysts need to better conceptualise the collective mechanisms and dis¬
courses which drive the emergence and formation of social ideas about
fashion and taste, and in addition, his theoretical foundation in symbolic
qualities of fashions suggests a better account of the semiotic element of
tastes needs to be developed.

What seems clear upon reading Blumer (1968, 1969), though it goes
unacknowledged in his work, is the legacy of Kant in Blumer 's ideas. It is
as if Blumer provides the groundwork for a sociological treatment of a
key aspect in the Kantian theory of aesthetics. Whether Blumer intended
this to be is doubtful, but his notions of collective sensitivity, common sensi¬
bility and collective selection are the sociological equivalent of Kant's idea of
the sensus communis of taste.

An earlier section of this chapter outlined Kant's theory of pure taste.
Without once again tracing through each logical step of Kant's philosoph¬
ical investigation, it is enough to summarise by saying that Kant's notion
of disinterested contemplation develops by logic to his idea of universal
pleasure, where given the satisfaction of particular criteria, similar judge¬
ments of pleasure can be demanded of others. Under these conditions,
true judgements of taste can only be made when others have the same
feelings of pleasure provoked in contemplation - judgements of taste
cannot logically be made without consideration of this sensus communis
aestheticus. It seems obvious that Kant is not attempting to develop a
proto-sociological understanding of taste. However, his philosophical
logic does lead him to address the question of taste antinomies - the prob¬
lem of a pure, universal judgement of taste in face of the tenet that judge¬
ments of taste are not based on communicable concepts (which denote a
particular type of interestedness), but feelings. In turn, the problem rests
on the issue of the universal communicability, a condition that must be

Objects and Distinction

131

satisfied in Kant's aesthetic model. The idea that there is a 'common
human understanding' (Kant, 1952: 151), whereby tastes are judged in
reference to others is an important component of Kant's philosophical
treatment. It is a logical condition of his idea that tastes are universally
communicable - to judge tastes one must 'think from the standpoint of
everyone else' (Kant, 1952: 152).

However, by the name sensus communis is to be understood the idea of a
public sense, i.e. a critical faculty which in its reflective act takes account (a
priori) of the mode of representation of everyone else, in order, as it were, to
weigh its judgement with the collective reason of mankind, and thereby avoid
the illusion arising from subjective and personal conditions which could read¬
ily be taken for objective, an illusion that would exert a prejudicial influence
upon its judgement. This is accomplished by weighing the judgement, not so
much with actual, as rather with the merely possible, judgements of others,
and by putting ourselves in the position of everyone else... (Kant, 1952: 151)

Conclusion

The quintessential social scientific way of researching 'taste' is associated
with the work of Pierre Bourdieu. This chapter has been careful not to
detract from the richness of theoretical, conceptual detail offered by his
approach. Nonetheless, at a broader level his work is characterised by a
relentless search for a social map of 'taste' indicators, where quotients of
cultural capital are linked to specific cultural objects, and in turn are seen
to play a role in reproducing broader social structures. This review has
contended that such a tradition of analysis has excluded a parallel, mar¬
ginal discourse on the social role of tastes.

Evident as early as Kant's idea of a sensus communis aestheticus, this
alternative discourse on the role of taste has re-appeared in sociological
literature in the work of Simmel, Veblen and later, Blumer. Though
Simmel and Veblen's accounts are based substantially on emulation and
status motivations, it has been suggested they contain an implicit
acknowledgement of the way that tastes form community, binding indi¬
viduals together through a collective orientation (see also Longhurst and
Savage, 1996), even though their precise material choices may not be
alike. In Blumer, we find clues as to the social exchange of symbolic mean¬
ings that assist in forming such a community, and a similar interest in
the process of negotiating taste and aesthetic judgement. Looking to these
classical accounts, and to some of the more recent speculations on the
possibility of community in postmodernity (Bauman, 1991; Ferry, 1993;
Gronow, 1997; Lyotard, 1988), encourages a research prospectus on taste
and aesthetic value that inquires into the conceptual processes of making
judgements, the types of subjective assessments involved, and the way
that such decisions take account of collective norms.

132

Objects in Action

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

In addition to the historical works by Williams, Mukerji and McKendrick et al. dis¬
cussed in the introduction to this chapter, Leora Auslander’s study of how furniture
styles are linked to power and authority in modern France, Taste and Power (1996),
is instructive in associating aesthetic styles and forms with ruling-class values and
institutional power. Despite the faults in his analysis, Veblen’s The Theory of the
Leisure Class ( 1899[ 1 934]) is a witty and acerbic dissection of those who wish to
be in fashion, that can still seem to have relevance today. I particularly enjoy
Chapter 6 on pecuniary canons of taste. Two books on the social aspects of design
are enjoyable and instructive: Peter Lloyd Jones’ book Taste Today (1991), and
Adrian Forty’s Objects of Desire (1986).

SEVEN

Material Culture and Identity. Objects and
the Self

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter surveys a range of material that looks at how objects
are used at an individual level, principally in the identity-related
task of understanding oneself. The chapter has five main sections
which:

• define identity and its major dimensions, and establish how
objects assist in the formation and performance of self and social
identities

• introduce object-relations and psychoanalytic theory to illustrate
some of the important psychodynamic relations between people
and objects, with special reference to D.W. Winnicott's idea of tran¬
sitional objects

• review explanatory theories of consumption which have underly¬
ing psychological components centred around Baudrillard's notion
of 'lack'

• use the example of youth sub-cultures to show how collective iden¬
tities are established through the working out of norms and values
through particular objects

• review research material on objects as self-extensions.

Objects and identity

How and why do people use objects as aids to developing, presenting and
managing their identity - the psycho-social activity of understanding
who they are, and letting others know who they are? We are defined as
people not only by what we think and say, but by what material things we
possess, surround ourselves with, and interact with: our clothes, shoes,
motor vehicle or other forms of transportation, pens, computer and other

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Objects in Action

personal technologies like mobile telephones or PDAs, and so on. All of
these material things help to establish, mediate and assist us in the perfor¬
mance of our personal and social identities.

You will recall that a fundamental principle of material culture studies
is that objects have the ability to stand for other things - or establish social
meanings - on behalf of, or more precisely along with people. The theoretical
principles upon which this claim is based have already been touched upon,
but are worth briefly revisiting. In the previous chapter, we saw how
Goffman distinguished between objects that allow for social confirmation of
categorical status (such as a uniform), and objects that afford expressiveness,
which he saw as reflecting a person's style of life, preferences, or personal
tastes - in effect what we could understand as their identity. Along similar
lines, Harre (2002) distinguishes between the functional and expressive orders
of objects. While the former order relates to the functional purpose to which
an object can be put, the latter capacity relates to social hierarchies of status
and honour, which individuals negotiate. Harre (2002: 32) comments:
'Material things can be understood in their full human significance only if
their roles in both these orders are identified. A Maserati Biturbo
Quattroporte is a useful device for bringing the weekly groceries home from
the supermarket. It is also a visible expression of wealth, style and so on'.
This chapter will look more closely at the links between objects and identity,
but before progressing with this task, the first thing that needs to be agreed
upon is exactly what identity is, its definition and major components.

Defining identity

Identity is a modern conceptual construct used in the social and behav¬
ioural sciences to refer to people's sense of themselves as distinct individ¬
uals in the context of community. At a basic level, we could say that
identity refers to people's socially determined sense of who they are - like
a social statement of who one is. Referring to the distinct features and
attributes of self, such as personality traits or values, identity is what dis¬
tinguishes oneself from another person. It includes the personal sense
someone has of themselves as an individual, with particular corporeal
and emotional qualities. It also includes a person's location within society,
especially the multiple types of social roles they can occupy and perform
at different times and places, for example, as student, partner, father,
boyfriend and so on.

Sociologists and social-psychologists typically think about three aspects
of identity: (i) social or objective identity, referring to a person's belonging
to various social groups, and the distinguishing socially relevant features
of such belongings, for example like gender, social class or ethnicity; (ii)
self or subjective identity, referring to the unique combination of one's per¬
sonal features, traits and preferences; and (iii) ego identity, referring to the
feeling one has of knowing who they are and how they 'fit in', giving the
person a sense of stability and continuity that helps to sustain their

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135

outlooks and actions. In reality, separating out these elements as discrete
aspects of identity is difficult. Contemporary understandings of identity
emphasise that having an identity means belonging to multiple groups,
performing a variety of roles, drawing various resources from each of
these networks, and from society broadly (e.g. media discourses) to forge
a sense of self.

Essentially, it is this expressive capacity of objects that affords individuals
the opportunity to articulate aspects of self through material engage¬
ments, in an attempt to communicate something about - and indeed to -
themselves. Objects have the capacity to do 'social work'. Objects might
signify sub-cultural affinity, occupation, wealth, participation in a leisure
activity, or an aspect of one's social status - all aspects of social identity. On
the other hand, objects also carry personal, cultural and emotional mean¬
ings, related to subjective identity - they can facilitate interpersonal inter¬
action, and help a person to act upon him or herself. For example,
wearing certain clothing may make a person feel empowered by chang¬
ing their self-perception. Objects, then, can assist in forming or negating
interpersonal and group attachments, mediating the formation of self-
identity and esteem, and integrating and differentiating social groups,
classes or tribes. The actual qualities of these objects do not always mat¬
ter greatly for sociality, and may be secondary to its possession. At some
level it is the mere possession of the thing that matters for people's attach¬
ment to material objects (Dittmar, 1992: 9). The fact that one has exclusive
control and ownership of an object is the crucial aspect mediating the
boundaries between self (who controls the object) and the other (who
doesn't). In this way, possession of the object affords cultivation of identity,
sometimes irrespective of an object's aesthetic or functional qualities.

Identity and late-modern society.- the emergence ot identity as ‘capital’

The postmodern perspective on consumption, which dominated the intel¬
lectual landscapes of the 1980s and 1990s, took the ability of consumption
to signify identity to an extreme. In radically turning Marxist and critical
perspectives on their heads, postmodern accounts emphasised consump¬
tion freedoms, largely unfettered personal choice, and consumption as a
form of play. The gist of the postmodern claim is that consumption exists
within a culture of hyper-commodification, where newness, beauty and
status are god-like in the minds of consumers, and are the keys to form¬
ing one's identity. The contrast made commonplace in commentary on
consumption processes is that if consumption could ever be characterised
in historical perspective as strictly utilitarian or functional, then by con¬
trast it is now characteristically self-constructive: identity-forming, reflex¬
ive, expressive and even playful.

The postmodern mode of expressive, identity-forming consumption
has been enabled by a number of large-scale social changes. First, the
widespread, frenetic commodification of all spheres of human life has

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Objects in Action

encouraged people to purchase the most fundamental human needs of
self-worth, love, sex and happiness, through commodities. Associated
with this - the argument goes - we live in an era where our self-identity
is created or discovered, and constantly monitored, relatively free from
the constraints of social class, family and work life. Being responsible for
our own identities, people use the abundant resources of consumer mar¬
kets to construct a viable identity, based around the skilful assemblage
of certain commodities which assist in building a sort of commodified
self. Third, commodities are not desired purely, or even mostly, for their
function, but have become aestheticised. That is - consistent with
Baudrillard's thesis about sign value being paramount - objects must look
good, as well as work. All sorts of consumer goods come to mind to illus¬
trate this dictum: watches, shoes, mobile telephones, domestic lighting
and so on, are all resolutely functional consumer objects that have been
thoroughly aestheticised. Finally, there is evidence of a fragmentation of
old hierarchies of cultural tastes, meaning pop-culture objects and even
'kitsch' objects can have as much aesthetic cachet as objects valued by the
upper-classes, depending on social context. This has meant that products
easily available to everyday consumers can be seen as 'art', and contribute
to a credible personal style. For example, think of many of the cheap,
cheeky and clever goods made by the French designer Philippe Starck. In
part, social status involves the masterly manipulation of symbols in order
to establish one's good taste, discernment or superior cultural style.
Clever consumers, especially youth within particular sub-cultures, have
usurped the link between high levels of personal style or taste and wealth.
In our consumer culture, a person doesn't need a Rolls-Royce and a country-
estate to establish their personal style and good taste. Establishing supe¬
rior style can now be done through a cool pair of old sneakers, some faux
rich jewellery purchased from a flea market, a retro pair of sunglasses and
a cheap 1980s styled, electronic watch. Or, at least that's what the new
rules of our consumer culture tell us.

Picking up on the dimensions of these new social formations and
patterns that de-emphasise structure, regulation and universal life paths,
James Cote (1996: 424) proposes that late-modern society requires individ¬
uals to cultivate and apply forms of 'identity capital', which he takes to
refer to the 'wherewithal individuals use when . . . they attempt to negoti¬
ate the tricky passages created by the obstacles of late-modern society'.
Cote's (1996) 'identity capital' thesis suggests that in late-modern culture
individuals have the potential to develop situated, contextual modes of
self-presentation that are reflexive and self-monitoring, allowing ease of
forms of 'cultural mobility' through time and space. Identity capital con¬
stitutes investments people build in themselves, which assist them in
making their way in a variety of personal and professional arenas they
aspire belonging to. This variant of capital includes things like: develop¬
ment of social and technical skills, enhanced behavioural repertoires,
and associations within networks. One could add that the possession of

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137

particular object tokens that afford desired identities could be included as
part of the 'tangible resources' for identity capital Cote refers to (1996:
426). Such material tokens - the right 'look', clothes, jewellery, motor
vehicle, and so on - all become passports into desired social, cultural and
institutional spheres.

What can objects do for our social and personal Identity ?

All of the previous discussion suggests that in contemporary society
objects can play a very important role in establishing our social and
personal identities. In terms of social identity, objects can stand for particu¬
lar features of a person, in the absence of interpersonal contact. Thus, visu¬
ally identifying an object within someone's possession can tell us much
about a person, without us having to speak to him or her to confirm such
a status. In terms of personal identity, objects assist the credible, effective
performance of an identity - they are integral parts of an effective social per¬
formance whereby objects (seem to) fuse with their possessors in order to
offer a convincing social performance. It should be noted that there are
some important cautions against easily accepting this view, however,
which really suggests the need for a better specified model of the commu¬
nicative aspects of objects. For example, Colin Campbell (1996) cautions
against the idea that goods necessarily or simply communicate some
aspect of a person's identity. For many consumers, it may be the case that
buying new clothes is strongly associated with an item of clothing meeting
functional requirements (for example, such as comfort, being right for a
particular task like gardening or jogging, able to be worn to work). Also, it
is difficult for us to assume the reasons why a person is wearing what they
are, even the person themselves may not be aware of the reasons as they
may wear things habitually, or 'automatically'. Then, even when clothing¬
conscious people do choose particular outfits, with particular features,
colours, cuts and shapes, and so on, it is unclear how such ensembles are
'read' by others. All in all, while it is plausible to assume objects like cloth¬
ing relate to a person's social identity and are actively chosen, it is more
difficult to describe and explain such a process in precise detail, especially
when it is complicated across multiple time-space contexts. The next sec¬
tions of this chapter survey the literatures which in some way show that
material culture is crucial to identity, along the way helping to specify
some of the processes at play. We turn first to look at how objects assist
important dimensions of human psychological development.

Object-relations and psychoanalytic theory: the role of objects
in human psychological development

The social and human sciences tend to focus on the socially and culturally
communicative properties of material culture. Indeed, this has been the

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Objects in Action

predominant theme of the current work, which seeks to review and
represent these traditions. This focus within the human sciences has been
at the expense of meaning-centred analyses of objects, and more so at the
expense of individual-centred approaches which investigate the motiva¬
tions, drives and attachments between individuals and objects.

The associated pros and cons are, briefly, thus. It is correct that the sell¬
ing machinery of advanced capitalism makes consumer objects more
and more available, marketing them vigorously and ingeniously in order
to sway consumer preferences. But then, such objects clearly have great
emotional and cultural power for users, who project their own meanings
onto any given object and in turn they incorporate things into their self.
The advantage of psycho-cultural approaches is they investigate some of
the emotional or personal reasons for attachments. Making use of a psy¬
chodynamic approach could be especially useful in consumption studies,
where a range of pivotal theories of zvhy people consume make sugges¬
tive, tentative use of psychological and psychodynamic approaches. A
more rigorous application may yield useful insights.

The following section outlines some key tenets of the 'object-relations'
school of psychoanalytic theory that are useful for studying material cul¬
ture. Before doing so, one area of potential misunderstanding needs to be
cleared up: the 'objects' in object-relations theory are not always or neces¬
sarily hard, material things, though they can be. An object within this the¬
oretical tradition can be a person, a part of another person, or indeed an
item of material culture. In suggesting the application of this tradition of
psychoanalytic theory to the study of material culture we can make gen¬
eral use of the theoretical endeavours recently charted by sociologically ori¬
ented psychoanalytic theorist Nancy Chodorow (1999, 2004) who argues the
efficacy of paying attention to the internal worlds of fantasy and affect to
explain individual experience and action, and also cultural complexity.
She suggests that all social and cultural experiences are transformed
through people's psychic lens: people are historically located, but psycho-
dynamically create a sense of meaning and selfhood. Chodorow's elegant
summary of the psychodynamic perspective is instructive:

People create and experience social processes and cultural meanings
psychodynamically - in unconscious, affect-laden, non-linguistic, immediately
felt images and fantasies that everyone creates from birth, about self, self and
other, body, and the world - as well as linguistically, discursively, in terms of
a cultural lexicon. Social processes are given, and they may lead to some pat¬
terns of experiencing in common, but this experiencing will be as much affec¬
tive and non-linguistic as cognitive. (Chodorow, 2004: 26)

Important work originating from psychoanalytic theory, coming under
the rubric of object-relations theory, is a potentially fruitful area for new
research innovations within material culture studies. Object-relations the¬
ory can be considered a sort of modem adaptation of the Freudian psy¬
choanalytic approach. Sigmund Freud originally used the term 'object' to

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139

refer to anything (not necessarily a material object) that a person used in
order to satisfy drives. So, in Freud's sense, objects are targets towards
which people directed their desire for instinctual satiation. For Freud,
these were of two main types: libidinal and aggressive. Object-relations
theory moves away from the somewhat reductionist approach of Freud's
libidinal theory, to an emphasis on the use of objects in establishing rela¬
tionships for certain types of emotional sustenance, psychological devel¬
opment, or need. The emphasis in object-relations theory is therefore on
fixing upon objects that satisfy key relationship needs. People choose cer¬
tain objects from within their environment to develop, manage and medi¬
ate their sense of self, others and the external environment.

The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein distinguished between part-objects
and whole-objects. For example, a parent would be a whole-object, while
the particular bodily part of the mother's breast would be a part-object.
Klein's point is that all human drives become directed or centred around
such objects. Once again, the object which affords psychological suste¬
nance and growth need not be a particular material object, though it could
be. Thus, within object-relations theory, objects can be people (such as
one's mother, or partner) or material things (such as so-called 'transitional
objects' with which we form attachments). These objects and a person's
relationship with them are incorporated into a sense of self, becoming
integral parts of maturing personhood. For example, children form rela¬
tionships with toys, which act as transitional objects in the formation of
the child's sense of self. As adults, some people form strong relationships
with food and alcohol, which are objects used to service or overcome their
anxieties or grief. Adults also have a range of special objects, to which
they feel attached: a favourite mug, a photograph, a special item of cloth¬
ing, a pen, item of jewelry, and so on. So the term 'object' is more inclu¬
sive for understanding how humans form and preserve a sense of self, as
well as relationships with others, through forming relationships with a
variety of object things. Within psychoanalytic theory this tendency to
invest objects with power and energy - meaning - is called cathexis.

Transitional objects and human development: a life-long search for
meaningful objects ?

D.W. Winnicott's (1971 [1953]: 1) elucidation of the idea of the 'transitional
object' is an important early statement in object-relations theory that still
has relevance. Winnicott noted that around the second half of their first year
infants become fond of holding and playing with objects. Fie specifically
suggested many infants become attached to dolls, but the repertoire of
objects probably extends further than this, to whatever is within their reach.
These objects become special objects for the infant, perhaps even objects to
which the infant appears 'addicted'. Winnicott argues that it is not just that
the infant seeks oral excitement and pleasure from fondling objects, or that
fondling diminishes an infant's anxiety, but the object they attach to offers
deeper psychological gratification around the psychic satisfaction of learning

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Objects in Action

about self, and others. Winnicott says that engagements with objects occur
within 'potential spaces', which are a type of intermediate space some¬
where between subject and object - not the individual subject, nor the exter¬
nal object environment, but the spaces of creativity and play that are created
when both meet. Winnicott says that potential space is at 'the interplay
between there being nothing but me and there being objects and phenom¬
ena outside omnipotent control' (1971[1953j: 100). Within this space, objects
are 'imaginatively elaborated', or invested with meaning through cathexis
(1971[1953j: 101).

According to Winnicott's theory, such playing with objects assists in the
development of a 'personal pattern' through the infant's capacity to
recognise the object as 'not-me'. This is an important realisation, for it
permits the infant to recognise the boundaries or borders or their self
through handling/sucking/throwing the object. It also confirms to the
infant that they can manipulate their environment (for pleasure, comfort
and satisfaction), and that they are indebted to others by forging bonds of
reciprocity and learned manners (for example, through the way parents
frequently encourage an infant to say 'ta' after accepting an object). The
object therefore assists in teaching the child important lessons.

A couple of fundamental psychoanalytic processes are at play in all
types of human relations with objects (Chodorow, 1999: 15). The first is
projection. When we project, we put our own feelings, beliefs, or parts of
self into another person or object. The second is introjection, where
elements of an object are taken into the self. There is thus a dialectic of
transference of energies at play in people-object relations. On the one hand
people project onto objects particular meanings, fantasies, desires and
emotions, and on the other, objects are being taken into the self, used, elab¬
orated, played with and eventually exhausted. We can see how such
theoretical resources can be of use for inquiries into the nature of con¬
sumer societies, especially people's desires for consumer objects. It sug¬
gests that people seek objects in order to cultivate /satiate desires and
needs, and that particular objects are sought out because they are invested
with particular meanings that tap into these desires, needs and fantasies.
In suggesting this, such approaches take us away from emphases on the
social and cultural dynamics of social communication, honour and status,
fashionability and cultural capital. Yet, they allow us to get to the core of
questions of human desire for objects of consumer culture, potentially
complementing the focus on traditional sociological questions of con¬
sumption and social difference. Some of the sociological material which
gestures in this direction is discussed in the next section.

Psychological lack and consumption: objects and desire

Given the sociological tendency to explain consumption through the logic
of class and group membership analysis, it is not surprising that even

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141

though studies of emotion and embodiment have gained greater currency
within social theory generally, this has not yet had a significant effect on
the consumption studies literature (see Boden and Williams, 2002). In
part, this has to do with the intellectual trajectory of consumption studies.
As Miller (1995) has pointed out, and has been discussed earlier in the
current work, there has been a reliance on a reductionist paradigm which
posits consumerism as either a social and personal 'bad', the lineage of
which can be traced from Marx through twentieth-century varieties of
critical thought such as Marcuse, and Horkheimer and Adomo (as reviewed
in the first section of the current work); or as a potentially liberating
'good', interpreted through the lens of theorists such as de Certeau,
Benjamin and Shields. While theoretically enabling, neither position has
encouraged a complex view of consumption practice.

This relative paucity of investigation into the interaction between emo¬
tion, self and consumption in social research is surprising given the fact
that a small number of persuasive and influential attempts to actually
explain the sustained existence of the cultural ethic of consumerism have
employed strong social-psychological, emotional orientations in their
explanations. Prominent in this field are Baudrillard's (1996[1968j)
theory of a psychological 'lack' at the core of consumerist psychology,
Campbell's (1987) account of the self-sustaining, autonomous ethic of
consumerist desire, and McCracken's (1988) theory of consumption as an
act of 'displaced meaning'. An important caveat is apt at this point.
Reading these works one picks up strongly on such psychodynamic and
psycho-social aspects - it should be noted such theoretical influences are
not developed as an explicit part of the authors' theoretical model. It is
important to note therefore that these authors are not necessarily psycho¬
analytic in their approach. What is correct, however, is that in a crucial
part of their explanation and analysis of consumption they do encourage
a focus upon deep psychological /ideational meanings driving consump¬
tion that could assist in the development of such an approach.

It is the rather psychically chilling idea of 'lack' that is at the core
of Baudrillard's writings on the nature of consumption practice in a
consumer society (1996[1968j). We require some brief revision of
Baudrillard's ideas from his work The System of Objects before moving to
the main point. At the base of Baudrillard's analysis of consumerism is the
theory that while we may consume physical objects, in fact we are really
consuming the idea of an object. These ideas are tied to inner motivations
and drives, rather than utility. Baudrillard's point is that objects eventu¬
ally, inevitably, perpetually disappoint - they never really satisfy the deep
psychological needs that direct us toward them in the first instance.
Consumption and consumer capitalism is thus founded upon a psycholog¬
ical lack that it perpetually stimulates, but cannot satiate. The possession
of objects is not just about having, but being. Thus, to talk about 'my car',
'my shoes', 'my i-Pod', 'my earrings', and so on is to bring objects into our
own possession and domination, projecting our own feelings onto a

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Objects in Action

particular object that we use in order to be who we are (Baudrillard,
1996[1968]: 101). Baudrillard's (1996[1968j: 204) pessimism about this type
of unquenchable need for objects is cavernous, and his indebtedness
to psychoanalytic variants of critical theory and Marxism is apparent
when he says that consumption has a dynamic derived from the 'ever-
disappointed project now implicit in objects'. Furthermore, the motivation
to consume comes from a deep, 'disappointed demand for totality that
underlies the project of life' - a cavernous, irrepressible, 'lack' (1996[1968j:
205). With such gloom and barrenness, the reason for Baudrillard's post¬
modern turn may well be clear.

McCracken's (1988) theory of displaced meanings is similar to
Baudrillard's notion of lack, though better specified. McCracken also
postulates a psychological motivation for consumption. In his theory, a
chronic aspect of the psycho-social aspect of everyday life is the gap that
exists between the real and ideal in people's everyday lives; in consumer
societies the pursuit of desirable objects is an important resource for
making bridges between the real and ideal. Dreaming and fantasising -
and drawing upon advertising discourses and the real or imagined lives
of others - are important, for it is in this imagined domain that people
come to define and build up their notion of an ideal. In consumer soci¬
eties, objects come to represent a bridge from the real to the ideal. Objects
are resources that attract meaning for people. It is on particular objects
that people tag their hopes, dreams and desires. The psychological pang
comes when people acquire elements of their dream, as represented in
objects, and invariably discover that their lives soon settle back to a mun¬
dane reality. After a short high, the theory postulates that people realise
their 'dream consumer object' does not satiate a deep, inner dissatisfac¬
tion. At this point, the cycle of dreaming for newness begins again.

Campbell's (1987) theory is even more elaborate and ambitious, primar¬
ily because of the historical argument it is predicated upon. Campbell's
thesis is that, alongside the bourgeois, rationalist and technical ethic
which characterised Weber's theory of capitalist development, there is a
romantic, pleasure-seeking, hedonistic spirit which drives modern
consumerism. Central to the cultural complex of consumerism is day¬
dreaming, fantasising and self-delusion. A major part of consumption is
imagination - consumers desire objects because they believe them to offer
something novel, empowering or edifying. People do not thus have an
actual desire for acquisition of objects per se, but the acquisition of 'dreams
and the pleasurable dramas which they have already enjoyed in imagina¬
tion' (Campbell, 1987: 90). As in McCracken's theory, so too for Campbell,
purchase simply eventually leads to further disappointment, and the
cycle of longing and desire begins again. This is the sublime power of the
consumer society - to offer objects that promise meaning and satisfaction,
but ultimately fail to satiate at the deepest level, over a long time period.
As beings that crave continual confirmation of identity and honouring
of the self, it is only reasonable that humans search for, and find some.

Material Culture and Identity

143

satisfaction in using objects for the purpose of managing such demands of
their psyche.

Youth culture and objects

Within the British cultural studies tradition there have been a range of
important ethnographic studies into the lives of various marginal groups,
especially young people. These have taken as one of their main goals to
show how members of such sub-cultural communities construct mean¬
ings to differentiate themselves from mainstream groups. Rather than
being a sign of selling-out, or submission to dominant ideologies, such
studies take youth sub-cultural forms like fashion or music to represent
types of resistance and political action. For example, in Chapter 4, we
considered Dick Flebdige's analysis of youth sub-cultural styles, which
illustrated how the semiotic 'command' of objects like safety pins, ripped
shirts, leather belts and so on, enabled youth to symbolically challenge
conventional stereotypes and mores. Within punk sub-culture, for exam¬
ple, the emphasis was on having objects 'out of place' - consequently dis¬
turbing semiotic coherence and the 'natural order' of things - in order to
give an object a threatening type of cultural power. Another scholar in the
same tradition is Paul Willis, whose ethnographic studies of 'profane' or
'common' culture showed how what were apparently the most mundane
elements of everyday life were open to subversive symbolic usage via cre¬
ative acts of appropriation. Such acts of appropriation were most effective
when they deployed the symbols of the dominant classes. Consumer
objects can be taken out of context, developed and repossessed to express
something very different to that which they were originally intended. In
his book Profane Culture, Willis (1978: 7) writes:

...these cultures teach us that revolutionary cultural change will only come
from reinterpretations, reformations of consciousness, and fermentation from
below around the most trivial, everyday and commonplace items .... It con¬
cerns thinking and feeling and how things are seen: new eyes on old objects.

In his ethnography of 'the motor-bike boys' Willis found the 'motor-bike
object' as the central stylistic focus of bike culture. Much of the culture of
the group he studied was taken up discussing aspects of motor-bikes:
their style, capacity, features, handling and ride, and so on. Within the
group, an individual's status was accorded in part by the type of bike they
rode, and their levels of competence around riding and mechanical
knowledge. And more than this, the type of experiences one has with a bike
accorded status within the group: the breadth, depth and associated under¬
standing one had which was akin to a type of citizenship within the biking
community. The motor-bike was the perfect material accompaniment - or
equivalent - to the broader cultural universe of the motor-bike boys.

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Objects in Action

While the boys were masculinist, direct, physical and respectful
of status, 'the solidity, responsiveness, inevitableness, the strength of the
motor-bike matched the concrete, secure nature of the bikeboys' world'
(Willis, 1978: 53). Willis continues, making the links between the object
and the identity of the bikeboys explicit:

It underwrote in a dramatic and important way their belief in the common-
sense world of tangible things, and the secureness of personal identity. The
roughness and intimidation of the motor-bike, the surprise of its fierce accel¬
eration, the aggressive thumping of the unbaffled exhaust, matches and sym¬
bolizes the masculine assertiveness, the rough camaraderie, the muscularity
of language, of the style of social interaction. (Willis, 1978: 53)

Willis saw the motor-cycle impacting on the full range of the cultural reg¬
ister. Its mechanical qualities were recognised and to be understood, and
an important part of attaining status within the group. Its mechanical
qualities were also incorporated into a mode of understanding one's
experiences on the bike: how it rode, handled and responded was impor¬
tant. In the end however, it is not a cybernetic relationship: 'bike' and
'boy' do not merge. Rather, the drive was to practically and symbolically
'control' the bike, to make it a distinctive and meaningful cultural con¬
struction. In the end, this anthropomorphised (to give something human
qualities) the cycle: effectively honouring it equal communicative status
within the bikeboy's cultural universe.

Within the field of youth and risky behaviours, Cynthia Lightfoot (1997)
links risk-taking to the development of youth identity. Risks are not plain
stupid, meaningless or nihilistic, but serve much the same function as
Winnicott's 'transitional objects' discussed earlier in this chapter: they offer
young people an opportunity to apprehend their own identities, feelings,
desires and fears, within the context of their peers: 'worn like badges -
of autonomy, or defiance, or group membership - risks are declarations of
the self' (Lightfoot, 1997: 9). Lightfoot talks about how within their peer
group, adolescents go about constructing new talismans: objects of status
marked with culturally approved magic signs, which are seen to confer on
its bearer supernatural powers. While engagements with such 'talisman'
objects come about within the context of play and fantasy, they are power¬
ful forms of expressing youth identities: 'adolescents are makers of new
talismans. The clothes they wear; their music and media choices, their
language and slang, their hangouts: all of these are forms expressing who
they are, and who they would like to be' (Lightfoot, 1997: 9).

Objects as extensions of self

Russell Belk's (1988) extensive, interdisciplinary essay on possessions and
how they 'extend self' is the key work in this field. Belk makes the point

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145

that human beings are more than their physiology - their bodies and their
minds. People value very highly and extremely personally objects in their
external environment, especially those they deem to 'possess'. At one level,
these things are purely technological and functional - they assist people to
undertake social action with greater efficacy, and across time and space
(for example, a mobile telephone, motor vehicle, or an electronic diary
assistant). More than this, external objects take on deeper meanings - they
can afford a variety of projections. The psychologist William James asserts
that the self - who T am - is understood not just to be 'Me', as in my body
and my thoughts, but also what is 'mine'. So, effectively, James under¬
stands that we cannot separate selfhood from things external to it, which a
person believes and acts as if a thing is equivalent to their self. Hence, a
human being's world of meaning extends well beyond their empirical self,
to objects, things and other people in their environment. On the way exter¬
nal objects become associated with selfhood, James says: 'we feel and act
about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about our¬
selves' (William James, in Belk, 1988: 140).

Psychological research backs up James' theories about where people
believe their 'self' begins and ends. It suggests objects and things are
very much a part of people's sense of self. Belk (1988) reports Prelinger's
research on limits to selfhood that shows people tend to understand
themselves first and foremost as embodied, though objects also rank
highly in significance. In order of ranked importance, people imagine
their self as: specific body parts (eyes, face, legs), psychological
processes of their mind (like a person's beliefs, values or their con¬
science), their personal identifying attributes (age, occupation), their
possessions (watch, computer, CDs), abstract ideas (one's moral view¬
points), other people (partner, parents), objects within one's close phys¬
ical environment (pens, lamps, books), followed finally by objects
within distant environments (where one has travelled, one's workplace).
Interestingly, note how the possessions category ranks more highly than
'other people' in imagining the self, suggesting the strong importance of
objects. A potential factor at work in this ranking is the degree of per¬
sonal control people perceive they have over things, which influences
their perceptions of the relative closeness of these components of self.
People can personally control objects more than they can other people,
and hence feel a closer attachment to them. Thus, the more we believe
we possess, or are possessed by an object, the closer we feel it to be part
of our selves (Belk, 1988: 141). Summarising, Belk (1988) concludes on
the basis of his review that the following are perceived by people as
important components of self, in ranked order of importance: body;
internal processes; ideas and experiences; persons, places and things we
feel attached to. The following sections review research which looks into
various dimensions which structure the relationships between the self
and objects.

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Objects in Action

Favourite objects, treasured possessions and meaning creation

Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) interviewed over 300
people from 82 different families within the Chicago City area for their
influential study that set out to empirically account for the transactions
between people and objects within homes. Their research approach is
underpinned by a belief that objects are symbols that can tell researchers
who people are, who they have been, and who they wish to become.
When asked what things in their homes were most important to them,
and why, respondents reported the following categories most frequently.
This list is followed with a brief summary of the major reasons why they
nominated this object:

1 furniture (chairs, sofas and tables that fill the home, providing com¬
fort, structuring routine and sometimes embodying memories)

2 visual art (paintings and posters that have aesthetic and stylistic
value but equally importantly refer to memories, familial attach¬
ments and values of the self)

3 photographs (of family and loved ones, preserving memory, per¬
sonal ties and suggesting perpetual presence of departed kin)

4 books (these refer to one's past achievements, current interests and
are tokens that represent one's ideals and values)

5 stereo (music is an important mood moderator for many people and
an important referent for people's identity)

6 musical instruments (an important symbol of a person's creative
expression and a referent for their enjoyment of music, sometimes
refers to a past interest one has had to give up)

7 TV (like music, TV helps to moderate moods and provide enjoy¬
ment, it also provides an artificial form of sociality for those who live
alone)

8 sculpture (three-dimensional artefacts, standing for family relation¬
ships, cherished experiences, and sometimes aesthetic qualities)

9 plants (provide an opportunity for people to care for something, grow¬
ing healthy plants represent a personal accomplishment and refer to
people's sense of connection with the environment)

10 plates (includes heirlooms, gifts, exotic objects and curios which tie
one to others and refer to significant events in one's life).

Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) also found important
differences in how objects were cherished across the life-course. On the
basis of their generational sampling approach, they suggest a master
binary scheme for interpreting age-related differences between: (i)
objects that are cherished for affording of action (for example, a ball, or
a bike, or a kite), and (ii) objects that are cherished for affording contem¬
plation (for example, a photograph, an old plate, a sculpture). The objects
young people and children tend to nominate as their most cherished are

Material Culture and Identity

147

things that cultivate or encourage action - they are instruments for
doing, and require physical manipulation and engagement, such as
musical instruments, sports equipment, bikes and skateboards. On the
other hand older people, the grandparents within the study sample,
tend to cherish objects that require mostly mental and emotional
engagement, such as photographs. The middle generation tended to
nominate objects toward the contemplative end of the spectrum, resem¬
bling the older generation within the sample. The general trend the
authors identify is for meanings of objects to shift over time, from what
one can do with an object to what one has done in the past. Thus, as one
gets older objects serve to connect one with the past, affording continu¬
ity of self into the future presumably as one's life changes, becoming
more challenging and more complex in various ways. Csikszentmihalyi
and Rochberg-Halton are careful to point out that such a binary distinc¬
tion between action and contemplation can be misleading. For example,
both older and younger generations ranked the stereo highly as a cher¬
ished object. In such a case, the object can clearly afford a range of mean¬
ings, and can be used flexibly by people to suit their needs. For the
young person the stereo thus plays the latest pop songs, loudly, energet¬
ically and urgently; while for the older person it can induce sentimental
moods or be a source of relaxation. The authors suggest more broadly
that this 'decentring' of cherished objects - from objects that directly and
physically engage self to objects that link self to others - corresponds to
Piaget's stage model of cognitive development.

Laura Kamptner (1995) researched the treasured possessions of adoles¬
cents. Kamptner was interested not only in the range of treasured objects,
but the reasons why people nominated such possessions. Kamptner
found that adolescent males listed the following categories of objects,
in order, as their most treasured: music (CD player, musical instru¬
ments), sports equipment (from surfboards to baseball bats), motor vehi¬
cles, small appliances (mostly TVs but also computers, cameras and
videogames), and clothing (including shoes). Females listed the following
objects, in order: jewellery, stuffed animals, music, clothing and small
appliances. Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981: 107) report a
similar type of finding from their study. Males tend to report instrumental
objects more frequently, such as furniture, TVs, stereos and musical
instruments, while women tend to rank highly expressive categories such
as photographs, visual art, sculpture, books and plants. In terms of
the meanings derived from their most treasured objects, according to
Kamptner 's data males were most likely to refer to enjoyment (mood
enhancement such as 'feeling good' or 'escape'), utilitarian reasons (such
as it 'gets a job done', or fulfils a role), and self (the object represents a part
of one's identity); while females were most likely to list the social mean¬
ings of objects (objects that have some type of link or tie to another per¬
son) as the most important meaning, followed by self and enjoyment. In
this sense, there are important gender differences: men tend to focus on

148

Objects in Action

objects that get things done, fulfil perceived important roles or tasks and
which give direct enjoyment, entertainment or pleasure; while women
tend to focus on objects that afford kin and friendship ties (for example,
of memory, or direct current association).

In terms of age and object attachment, Kamptner finds that, compared
to when they were young, older respondents suggested they treasure
objects now for their utilitarian roles, rather than comfort or entertain¬
ment reasons. So, the kinds of objects treasured did change with age,
generally from 'emotional comfort' to 'utilitarian' and 'enjoyment' roles.
Kamptner suggests this change mirrors the developmental stage of ado¬
lescents, who use objects to generate autonomy and independence, gener¬
ate a sense of self-identity, and engage with peers, and find excitement
and stimulation. In summary, objects afford identity-related developmen¬
tal opportunities for adolescents.

In her research into object meanings, Marsha L. Richins (1994a) distin¬
guishes between the public and private meanings of possessions, while
noting the interpenetration of such categories. Public meanings relate to
meanings assigned by members of society at large. While there will be
some variation and misinterpretation, by and large, members of a com¬
munity can agree on the meaning of many objects as they are shaped by
meanings around fashion, style, status and stigma. Private meanings are
what a possession means for an individual. This might include some
aspects of the owner's personal history, especially related to significant
kin relationships. In terms of the types of possessions valued by respon¬
dents in her study, Richins found the following categories of objects, in
ranked order: sentimental objects (gifts, photo albums), assets (house,
property, money), transportation (car), practical objects (tools, kitchen
appliances), recreational objects (sports equipment, musical instruments),
personal appearance related things (hair dryer, hair straighteners, jew¬
elry), extensions of self representing personal accomplishments (trophies,
degree certificates), and aesthetic objects (paintings, sculptures). Richins'
multi-stage study shows a good degree of consensus amongst her respon¬
dents regarding the intended private and public meanings of objects. To
some degree this is expected: the public meanings of an object result from
shared socialisation experiences, and participation in social activities.
Private meanings tended to be nuanced and idiosyncratic. Thus, respon¬
dents could tell the researchers more about the private meanings they
attach to objects, because an individual's direct experience with objects is
shaped by the very personal nature of their life history and associations.
As Richins (1994a: 517) observes: 'the range of uses and experiences pro¬
vided by a vacuum cleaner, for example, is much more limited than those
provided by an automobile or hiking boots'.

Some interesting research has extended the process of valuing pos¬
sessions to more general personal traits, especially how materialistic a
person is. Materialism refers to how strongly a person desires and values
possessions as part of their identity. A materialistic person is one who

Material Culture and Identity

149

highly regards the capacity of possessions in their life, and who considers
possessions important ingredients for a variety of facets of their life, such
as happiness, success or self-worth. Do materialistic persons value differ¬
ent objects, and do they ascribe them different meanings to less material¬
istic people? For example, while two people may equally value a car to get
them from A to B (as the saying goes), a materialistic person would
demand the car have various attributes which they perceived as meeting
their sense of self. Likewise, a 'universal' type of clothing such as jeans
could be worn by both a materialistic and less materialistic person,
though the type of jeans preferred would be vastly different in price,
brand and possibly design. Richins (1994b) finds that less materialistic
people value objects likely to be used privately, or visible within the home
only, whereas more materialistic people value objects that are worn, or
used, in public spaces. Further, the more materialistic a person, the more
expensive the items they highly valued. High materialism respondents
were more likely to refer to financial value when describing objects, and
less likely to mention interpersonal ties. Those who were low in material¬
ism were more likely to value objects for their interpersonal meanings,
rather than instrumental values. Appearance related meanings - or
aesthetic values - were more highly scored by high materialists when
determining their satisfaction with objects. In a unique and interesting
study into the psychic world of materialistic individuals, Kasser and
Kasser (2001) applied a psychoanalytic-inspired approach to survey peo¬
ple about the content of their dreams. By classifying people according to
a materialism scale, they found that highly materialistic people were more
likely to have dreams around insecurity themes (for example, like falling,
or dying), conflictual interpersonal relationships with significant others,
and concerns about their self-esteem. By comparison, less materialistic
individuals reported dreams suggesting they strove toward greater inti¬
macy, and felt empowered to overcome danger. Despite noted method¬
ological limitations in their otherwise careful approach, Kasser and
Kasser suggest that highly materialistic people may suffer more readily
from self-doubt and threats to their identity-security, have poor interper¬
sonal relationships, and have a self-esteem that is either low or contingent
on a range of external factors.

Conclusion

Within consumption studies, a recent shift has been toward accounts which
have emphasised, even privileged, the idea of identity as central in explain¬
ing the motives and social purposes of consumption. Typically, this trend
toward identity-centred approaches has been most strongly displayed
within cultural studies, and more meaning-centred sociological analyses.
Such moves have largely been in response to the longer history of margin¬
alising consumption within more structural and materialist analyses. The

150

Objects in Action

popularity of such 'identity' approaches has been such that moves back
the other way toward structural, (materially) contextualised accounts of
consumption have been called for in the general tradition of Pierre
Bourdieu.

The move away from identity, before adequate empirical treatment can
be afforded to account for its role, is premature. This chapter has reviewed
work which shows that at the very centre of people-object relations are
questions of identity This is not necessarily the 'identity' of the more
colourful cultural studies and sociological accounts that suggest identity
is merely something to be played or flirted with. Rather, this chapter has
tried to review work that shows the centrality of people-object relations
to the 'hard' identity questions of self-cultivation, psychological meaning
and personality development. Objects have crucial roles to play in this
psychodynamic activity of constituting and understanding self, from
birth and the cradle, throughout the lifecourse.

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

On the big questions of identity, possessions and objects the first place to look is
any work by Russell W. Belk. Belk is a Professor in the field of business studies
who writes with analytic clarity, and an interest in cultural explanations of con¬
sumption. On self-image, consumption and attachment also see papers by Schultz
et al. (1989); Dittmar and Drury (2000) and Ahuvia (2005). More generally, The
Journal of Consumer Research has a range of consistently good qualitative and
quantitative pieces on all facets of consumption. On theories of identity generally,
also consult Anthony Elliott’s work Concepts of the Self! 2001) but if you like the
material on object-relations discussed in this chapter also consult Elliott’s useful
overview of psychoanalytic theory Psychoanalytic Theory: An Introduction (1994).
For more on object-relations specifically, see Lavinia Gomez’s An Introduction to
Object Relations (1997), while advanced readers should browse D.W. Winnicott’s
important Playing and Reality! 197111953]). For work on identity and sub-culture,
see Paul Willis’ Profane Culture (1978). For an updated version of British sub¬
culture research, see Paul Hodkinson’s Goth: Identity, Style & Subculture (2002).
Though both these works are not about material culture per se, look for references
to how objects help to define the sub-culture’s norms, experiences and values. For
a design perspective that tackles questions of consumption, attachment and psy¬
chic ‘lack’ and stacks them up against very serious questions of waste, the bios¬
phere and environmental degradation see Jonathan Chapman’s book Emotionally
Durable Design (2005).

EIGHT

Material Culture, Narratives and Social
Performance. Objects in Contexts

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS

This chapter looks at how objects come to life through narrativisa-

tion and social performance. It has four main sections which:

• define and discuss the concepts of narrative and social perfor¬
mance, outlining their value for studying objects

• discuss the example of the home as a special context for studying
material culture

• outline a range of environmental and social-psychological, and
sociological, approaches to studying domestic objects

• use case studies to investigate the polysemic nature of people-
object relations in the home.

Objects in contexts

Along with a discussion of the application of the concepts 'narrative' and
'performance' in studies of material culture, this chapter uses interview
and case study material from a study the author conducted on practices
of home decoration. Its aim is to examine two important perspectives on
how objects acquire cultural meaning and efficacy within social contexts.
These perspectives amount to ways of investigating or accounting for
objects, and can be summarised by the terms 'performance' and 'narra¬
tive'. The rationale for this chapter is that objects cannot have cultural effi¬
cacy without these two important ingredients: narratives and performances.
Before moving to the body of this chapter, the basis of this rationale is
briefly considered.

152

Objects in Action

First, without narrative storylines, be they accounts spoken by individuals
or accounts that hold more general sway within a population such as a
discourse, an object is rendered virtually invisible within a culture. An
object may perform a crucial role (like the many thousands of individual
rivets in an aeroplane) but it is taken for granted, and effectively ignored.
One might observe that sociologically this practice of ignoring is impor¬
tant, for it is partly in ignoring an object that we learn its place. Much of
the material within the growing field of actor-network theory (ANT)
starts from this premise to some degree. However, this chapter is more
interested in the narrativisation of objects, meaning the way people talk
about objects as a way of talking about their lives, values and experiences.
So, the way consumer objects acquire their cultural meaning is within
local settings, where participants confer objects a social life through offer¬
ing active, creative accounts, or narratives. It is stories and narratives that
hold an object together, giving it cultural meaning. Rom Harre's (2002)
paper is helpful in illuminating this point. He proposes a number of prin¬
ciples for theorising objects. Two of these are:

An object is transformed from a piece of stuff definable independently of any
story-line into a social object by its embedment in a narrative.

Material things have magic powers only in the contexts of the narratives in
which they are embedded. (Harre, 2002: 25)

Second, because objects are material things that humans interact with in
an environment, they are part and parcel of all types of human activity.
We can say that objects are part of any social performance, whereby peo¬
ple go about actively constructing and communicating meanings. For
example, try to picture Jimmy Hendrix without his guitar, Satchmo with¬
out a trumpet, Groucho Marx without a cigar, Charlie Chaplin without his
cane, a bus conductor without his portable ticket machine, a B-Boy with¬
out his 'kicks' (sneakers). Flavor Flav (the rapper from the group Public
Enemy) without the clock around his neck, a business person without
their PDA or mobile phone. Of course it is possible to picture the person
without the object, but in thinking about each of these people, the person
and the object go together. There is mutuality and complementarity between
person and object (Gibson, 1986). The effective performance of any iden¬
tity thus relies on particular engagements with, and presentations of,
objects. In this sense, we can say that objects have a performative capacity,
being a result of social context and reflexive presentations of self in
relation to objects. Extending this view more broadly to questions of con¬
sumption, we can conceive consumption as a performative accomplish¬
ment, where social actors draw upon narratives, codes and symbols to
continuously enact their identity and give meaning to material posses¬
sions. There is a dual quality to this relationship between social action,
things and words which Pels et al. sum up in their excellent introduction
to a special issue of the journal Theory, Culture and Society:

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

153

Objects need symbolic framings, storylines and human spokespersons in
order to acquire social lives; social relationships and practices in turn need to
be materially grounded in order to gain temporal and spatial endurance.
(2002:11)

Objects and narrative: things and words

The previous section has examined how, in conjunction with humans,
objects are routinely part of any social performance - they act and are
acted upon to achieve social goals. Along with this performative capacity,
objects also require accounting for, and narrativisation. They are part of
the stories we tell about our experiences and values. Narratives refer gen¬
erally to stories or accounts that are told individually and at the macro,
societal level. At an individual level, narratives consist of the accounts or
stories people tell themselves, and others, in order to both make sense of -
and make through practical means - their lives. Narratives are thus reflective,
accounting for events that have already taken place. But they are also
active as a site for articulating an individual's values and beliefs - they
provide the resources and frames for constructing a person's future.
Individuals tell their lives through stories, though these stories are not
simply there waiting to be told - they are actively constructed for partic¬
ular audiences, plots and contexts (Riessman, 1993). This process of nar¬
rativisation tells us about the meanings people apply to their lives.

There is a second type of narrative that is relevant to our concerns.
Narratives are not only mentalistic or idealistic aspects of selfhood, but
important components of culture. That is, narratives are not just told by
individuals to others or to oneself. They circulate within culture, telling
members of a group about their own culture, and therefore about objects.
Thus, the reader will remember Smith's historical study of the guillotine
(see Chapter 5), and the way it was understood - 'framed' - through par¬
ticular cultural narratives about science, medicine, the human body and
spirit. Likewise, Alexander's study of the computer (in the same chapter)
showed the cultural narratives that existed over time about this new
object, and how it was narrativised through public discourse alternately
as a saviour, or a threat.

Objects and social performance

Social life is not just made up of performances, but of accounts of these per¬
formances which provide the meaning and context for social action. Taking
the example of consumption, we can see it as driven by the need to estab¬
lish cultural identities and affiliations, then, conceptualising it as
a type of 'consumption performance' where actors harness symbolic codes.

154

Objects in Action

narratives and objects to achieve certain ends, can offer new paths for
conceptualising consumption. Recent developments in performance
theory have emerged from a range of theoretical traditions. Goffman (1959)
used the concept of performance to explain the enactment of social roles
according to the logic of status management. More recent developments in
performance theory (Alexander, 2004a, 2004b; Butler, 1997[1988]; Geertz,
1973; Schechner, 1993; Turner, 1982) seek to understand the performative
character of identity by drawing upon theoretical resources of symbolic
action, ritual and social drama to show how social action is contingent upon
history and collective sentiments, but must be brought into existence by
continuous performative acts which actualise and reproduce the identities
of social actors (Butler, 1997[1988]: 409). In his exposition of the elements of
performance Alexander (2004b: 529) defines cultural performance as:

the social process by which actors, individually or in concert, display for oth¬
ers the meaning of the social situation. This meaning may or may not be one
to which they themselves consciously adhere; it is the meaning that they, as
social actors, consciously or unconsciously wish to have others believe. In
order for their display to be effective, actors must offer a plausible perfor¬
mance, one that leads those to whom their actions and gestures are directed
to accept their motives and explanations as a reasonable account.

Alexander (2004b) goes on to develop a model of the elements of cultural
performance. These include a variety of things that compose a social per¬
formance, such as: a body of collective representations to which social
actors orient their actions (goals, morals, beliefs); actors and audiences;
mise-en-scene (the elements of the scene within which people act); social
power (some performances are understood as natural and appropriate,
others as inherently challenging and iconoclastic). A final element of
Alexander's model of social performance is especially relevant for discus¬
sions of material culture: the means of symbolic production. By this,
Alexander is referring to the range of 'mundane material things' (2004b:
532) that allow and empower people to act socially. This consists of objects
that serve to represent things to others, frequently through iconic means.
These material things are a crucial part of any social performance because
they assist social actors to 'dramatize and make vivid the invisible
motives and moral they are trying to represent' (2004b: 532). Erving
Goffman referred to such things as 'expressive equipment'.

A few relevant examples of material things that have a performative
capacity come to mind. The first relates to mobile phone use. Imagine you
are talking to a friend when their mobile phone rings. What does this sig¬
nal to you? One of the things it is likely to suggest is that this person is
busy, perhaps having many things on their plate, and has a range of other
commitments to meet. In fact, your friend answering their mobile phone
whilst in conversation with you may be a signal for your conversation to
end. Another example relates to formal wear, such as a tie. Imagine you

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

155

see a male friend who is usually dressed very casually wearing long
trousers with a coat and tie. What is this likely to signal to you? Two
things come to my mind: either they are about to attend a job interview,
or a funeral. There may be other possibilities, but the tie sends a strong
signal that a person is dressing formally for a special occasion requiring
'proper' dress. There are a whole range of other possible examples which
illustrate how particular materials or objects signal to others a person's
understanding of the social situation and their own part in it. Alexander
makes the point that an individual's social performance can be received
as 'fused' (successful), 'de-fused' (failed and incomplete) and 're-fused'
(re-made as successful), depending on a range of factors such as an indi¬
vidual's command of the situation and its requirements. Ultimately, the
goal of any social actor is to harness the symbolic things and objects at
hand in order to successfully convey their meaning to others. Material
things become part of most social performance.

The home: objects in a special context

In the next section of this chapter we consider the home as a special con¬
text for people-object relations. There are a number of reasons why the
home is a good case study: it is a focal point of most people's lives - both
physically and emotionally, where they interact with the most important
others in their lives; it is the most substantial monetary investment the
majority of people will make and an important signifier of achievement
and success, as well as personal values; and finally, it embodies elements
of being both highly personal and strongly social such that it encompasses
private and public meanings. In the following review the research relat¬
ing to psychological, cultural-anthropological and sociological elements
of dwellings is critically discussed.

The psychological components of dwellings: maintaining self and
Individuality In a social context

Social psychological research into the house and home constitutes a large
body of total research into dwellings. Researchers in this tradition have
recognised the environmental and psychic importance of the home space
and objects inside the home, given their centrality to modern life broadly
and everyday existence. Gaston Bachelard's (1958[1994j) The Poetics of
Space explores the phenomenological and psychoanalytic aspects of space,
and in doing so emphasises the philosophical implications of the psycho¬
logical perspective. Bachelard is a rather idiosyncratic place to start an
analysis of the psycho-social aspects of the home - his ideas have an
imperial tone, yet are nearly entirely speculative; however, he does man¬
age to convey some essential aspects of the phenomenology of dwellings
and the objects inside them. For Bachelard the house is a place of memory

156

Objects in Action

and dreams that is the centre of the human universe - 'For our house is
our comer of the world. As has often been said, it is our first universe, a
real cosmos in every sense of the word' (Bachelard, 1958 [1994]: 4). A sub¬
text that runs through Bachelard's discussion is that modern life (presum¬
ably through work, technology, gadgetry) dispossesses people of the
benefits of truly knowing their dwelling; modern processes slacken peo¬
ple's 'anthropocosmic ties' (1958[1994]: 4). What the house should offer
people is 'psychological elasticity' (1958[1994]: 6) - the chance to recall
and hone memories, and a secure space in which to foster imagination.
Flere the psychoanalytic basis of Bachelard's approach becomes clear. He
proposes that people are by nature closer to poets than historians, who
live fixations of happiness through memories and their images. Those
memories which have the most salience are ones generated in the protec¬
tive cradle of the home. For Bachelard, daydreaming - essentially an
important psychological process of reflection - is crucial to phenomeno¬
logical well-being. Bachelard even suggests 'topoanalysis' as an auxiliary
of psychoanalysis (1958[1994]: 8) to encourage, for therapeutic purposes,
people to reflect on important intimate sites in their lives, and the rela¬
tions of these spaces to self, security and happiness.

There are a number of important psycho-social themes in Bachelard's
work that recur in more recent work of psychologists. Based on the psy¬
chological idea of the self and non-self, Bachelard proposed that divisions
of geographic space are fundamentally divided between house and non¬
house, enclosing interior space, and excluding outside. In addition, the
house has a facade (or 'mask' in Jungian terms), the public face that we
choose to present to others. The materiality of the house thus facilitates,
or provides, the physical means for people to think through issues of pri¬
vacy that define the public and private self. Two examples are interesting
on this matter: the verandah on Australian colonial style houses is a type
of liminal space, necessitated by the temperate-subtropical climate, which
allows for elasticity in the public/private dichotomy. The verandah places
people in public view, but at the same time offers them a fence as a sym¬
bol of privacy - on the verandah a person straddles both public and
private setting. In a similar vein, Vera (1989) shows how large windows
which are found in many Dutch homes allow people's private spaces to
become part of the public domain, and in turn, afford a surveillance point
for monitoring of public activity.

In their cross-cultural analysis of house forms Altman and Gauvain
(1981) also argue that the individual /society dialectic is the principal
theme for analysis of domestic space. This basic thesis is elaborated by the
identification of two associated processes. The first is the 'identity/
community' distinction, which highlights the way displays of status, dis¬
tinction, decoration and individuality are tempered by community
norms, which sanction the possibility of being 'too unique'. The second
dialectic is 'accessibility /inaccessibility', where zones of the house acquire
a security status that varies with the nature of interpersonal relationships

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

157

within the house and cultural norms associated with certain parts of the
house. For example, if the main bedroom has an ensuite, which members
of the family are allowed to use it? Is the living room an appropriate place
to eat breakfast? Does a family member knock before entering another's
bedroom? Lawrence (1987) uses the phrase 'privacy gradients' to describe
the role of these spatial, cultural boundaries which define appropriate
manifestations of the interior/ exterior dialectic throughout the house.

Just as space is culturally inscribed, Werner (1987; Werner et al., 1985)
demonstrates the importance of time in structuring divisions of house¬
hold space. Not only does the house and its spatial /cultural demarcations
change over time in a linear fashion (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-
Halton 1981: 138) depending on group needs (for example, a family
having more or less children to house), but the material culture of the
house plays an important cyclical role in the habits of everyday lives: bed¬
rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, sunrooms and verandahs are typically used
throughout the day at particular times.

Broadly consistent with Werner et al.'s (1985) transactional approach to
people-environment relations, Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton
(1981) present findings from a significant empirical study of material cul¬
ture in North American homes that was discussed in the preceding chap¬
ter. One of the key areas Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton's (1981)
study addresses is the relations between people, their psychic develop¬
ment and well-being, and the material objects in their homes. Their
research demonstrates that people use objects to signify information
about themselves, their relationships with others, significant past experi¬
ences and personal aspirations - 'the fact remains that the transactions
between people and the things they create constitutes a central aspect of
the human condition' (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981: ix).
Objects within the home can possibly perform a range of diverse func¬
tions including the mediation of conflicts within the self (a la Freudian
psychology); expression of desired qualities of the self; the representation
of status, fashionability or authenticity; and the expression of the goal of
personal and familial integration. In the most broad terms then, it can be
said that material objects in the home are crucially linked to human psy¬
chological development. In psychological terms, this idea is associated
with the process of affordance (Gibson, 1986; Werner et al., 1985), where
rather than just focusing on the physical capacity of objects, they are per¬
ceived according to human-generated meanings through processes of
appropriation, attachment and identity investment. In an empirical cross-
cultural study of living room spatial systems in Italy and France that
applies this idea of affordance. Bonnes et al. (1987) suggest that the
arrangement of objects in the home is related to the psychological need for
optimisation of the environment according to what is most valued by
householders. Thus, privacy, self-expression, identity formation and aes¬
thetic principles may all play a role depending on the socio-cultural back¬
grounds of the householders.

158

Objects in Action

Considered critically, Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981)
characterise people's relationships with their homes as driven by the psy¬
chological goal of the search for meaning: 'Meaning, not material posses¬
sions, is the ultimate goal in their lives' (1981: 145). Although their study
is insightful and empirically interesting, it is in their key word - meaning -
that we have the opportunity to see a basic sociological point. Csiks¬
zentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton do not focus on social meaning, but
psychological meaning. As the following section outlines, a sociological
treatment of their data would pay more attention to questions of social
group formation, class and taste, symbols and signifiers.

The home.- taste and its signifiers

A principal tenet in any sociological account of the home is that objects
and their placement in the home signify things. By this, it is meant not
only that objects have cultural or psychological weight, they reference
sociological factors like class, status and taste. Quite apart from sociolog¬
ical knowledge of patterns of tastes, or the analysis of lifestyles and the
expression of good taste, is the idea that underpins notions of a collective
account of tastes - one person's tastes are meaningful only in relation to
another's tastes. This force of taste to be at once integrating and differen¬
tiating is what gives it potency as a key resource for social differentiation.
But in order for specific tastes in clothing, music, or home decoration to
acquire a cultural power, they must be able to be decoded by people, in
everyday practice, as embodying elements of a particular style, aesthetic
mode or taste. This is an assumption which underpins both psychological
and sociological analyses of tastes, though it is not an unproblematic one.

In Bourdieu's study of tastes, the home is one part of the larger system
of taste. It is a domain which is incorporated into his notion of a 'space of
lifestyles', where different practices of home decoration, presentation and
use are distributed across the space of social positions. As part of his sur¬
vey instrument Bourdieu asked respondents what words they would
associate with their ideal notion of home. He finds that aesthetic cate¬
gories ('studied', 'imaginative', 'harmonious') are used more frequently
by those in higher levels of the social hierarchy (measured by occupation).
Alternately, the proportion of functionalist choices ('clean and tidy', 'prac¬
tical', 'easy to maintain') is more important for the middle and lower
classes (1984: 247-8). This refusal of particular categories does not just
occur between classes however, as fractions within each class are able to
mobilise nuanced logics which defend the particular basis of their choices.
In this way the broad rules which govern the aesthetic management of the
home are merely different applications of universal systems of taste inter¬
pretation. Thus, Bourdieu finds similar 'modes of living' in other taste
domains like food and clothing. In all, the aesthetics of organising and
presenting domestic space are an important domain for the positive dis¬
play of difference and the refusal of other choices.

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

159

Bennett et al.'s (1999) reproduction of Bourdieu's survey work in the
Australian context asks respondents an identical question about their
notion of the ideal home. Their findings suggest gender is an important
factor in social constructions of the desirable home. The distribution of
responses by gender in their data shows that men tend to place emphasis
on more abstract ideas like 'modern', 'well-designed' and, importantly,
'distinctive'. Women seem more concerned with practical, everyday notions
like 'uncluttered', 'clean and tidy' and 'lived-in'. What is important for
women, Bennett et al. (1999) suggest, are inward oriented understandings
of home, while for men expression, distinctiveness and style are more
commonly emphasised.

Bennett et al.'s (1999) finding on gender is interesting, though there are
few sources of data to compare it with. Bourdieu has stated that women
tend to occupy an aesthetic position close to the working-classes, a dispo¬
sition which oscillates toward the practical and real (1984: 40). In this
sense, Bennett et al.'s (1999) Australian finding seems broadly consistent
with Bourdieu's, even though Bourdieu does not present his specific find¬
ings on gender notions of the ideal home, preferring to frame his discus¬
sion in that section with a stratification by occupation only. However,
it would seem reasonable to hypothesise that women would favour
aesthetic notions more than men, who would be more likely to remain
grounded in the practical aspects of the home like spaciousness, simplic¬
ity and organisation. Bennett et al.'s (1999) qualitative data is helpful here.
Their case studies of middle-class women emphasise the importance of
aesthetic expertise in the home, particularly the successful coordination of
aesthetic signifiers. In contrast, they propose working-class homes are
managed to ensure order and cleanliness, and to foster the principle of
family happiness - in sum, the privileging of non-aesthetic categories.
This finding suggests that women are at least principal managers of
domestic space, but probably more than that, they are often taste experts.
Daniel Miller's (1988) study of kitchen renovation on a London council
estate offers an interesting counterpoint to the finding that working class
residents perceive the home using un-aesthetic frameworks. Miller found
two basic types of kitchen were installed when the estate was built, and
accordingly, his goal was to account for the aesthetic changes made to the
kitchen over the 15 or so years since they were built. Miller found that a
small group of males had made no changes at all to the layout and deco¬
ration of the original kitchen, supporting the finding that the aesthetic
domain of the home is female centred. Men did engage in expressive
activities, but these generally occurred in other rooms of the house.
Overall, Miller established that a significant degree of aesthetic work had
been done to the kitchens, and that the kitchen was valued as a site con¬
structive of social and kinship relations. Miller describes the process in
terms of 'dealienation', where consumption is a process of transformation
through giving meaning to alienated elements of material culture (see
also Miller 1987; 1998a for similar themes).

160

Objects in Action

David Halle's (1993) research on the consumption of artistic styles in a
sample of North American homes constitutes an original and valuable
empirical interpretation of this broader theoretical debate about the rela¬
tive weight of themes concerning cultural dominance and class, and a
diverse range of other cultural and social-psychological factors. At the
centre of Halle's research is the rationale that public tastes for art are best
understood within the material culture of the house and neighbourhood,
and its related myths, values and ideologies associated with family, moder¬
nity and sub-urbanisation. As Halle points out, art history is commonly
thought about as the history of 'great artists' (1993: 3), and a lack of a
decent theory to explain the consumption of art has meant that one¬
dimensional, caricatured accounts have taken hold. Halle characterises
these theories as 'art as status', 'art as ideology' and 'art as cultural capi¬
tal'. Halle's primary finding is that the meanings consumers give to art in
their home are not totally individualistic and unhinged from structural
processes, but that idiosyncratic meanings and interpretations arise out of
people's interactions within broader social contexts such as suburbanisa¬
tion, modernisation and family life. For example, Halle postulates that the
general preference for de-populated landscapes is linked to a modem
leisure sentiment that favours the position of the private spectator.

Madigan and Munro's (1996) study looked at the home as a site for con¬
sumption, specifically considering the theoretical tension between the
home as an expressive space and the familial and class patterns which are
overlain onto individual aspirations. In relation to the question of gender
and the home, Madigan and Munro (1996) did find that women bore more
responsibility for aesthetic choices in the working- and lower-middle-class
homes that made up their sample; furthermore they expect an even greater
level of aesthetic responsibility for women in middle-class and lower-
middle-class homes. Madigan and Munro's findings on class and home
aesthetics generally support findings from elsewhere. They identify the
most important factor in choice to be the social and interpersonal relations
embodied in such aesthetic choices. Thus, making people feel 'welcome,
comfortable and relaxed' (1996: 53) is more important than individualist
notions of style and expression. This is a strategy that presents the self as
decent, respectable and reliable, and requires a domestic space that is suit¬
ably tidy, sober and modest. Accordingly, Madigan and Munro (1996: 46)
found that firm notions of aesthetic style were relatively under-developed
in their sample, though younger people were found to be more aspira-
tional and have a need to be perceived as distinctive and individual in
their choices (1996: 52).

Madigan and Munro (1996) suggest that there is a lack of freedom to
manipulate the symbols and images of home decoration which is associ¬
ated with lower-income households that simply serves to re-emphasise
their lack of resources. Notions of self-expression are seen as the
privileged domain of the upper-middle classes. The attraction of this

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

161

viewpoint is clear. Nevertheless, it must be questioned on two matters.
First, are 'non-aesthetic' modes of living in homes truly non-aesthetic, or
merely a different type of aestheticism which is relatively undervalued in
conventional standards of good taste? Second, there is some research
which indicates that even the most socially disadvantaged and deprived
groups engage in forms of living space decoration, (Hill, 1991; Miller,
1988), suggesting that the distinction between modes of home presenta¬
tion based on social class are likely to de-emphasise or leave out a range
of other cultural and social-psychological factors.

Domestic objects: their narrativisation and role in social
performance - some cases

The final section of this chapter seeks to apply these ideas to research con¬
ducted on how people decorate their homes. The key ideas of this chapter -
material culture and narrativisation, and material culture and social
performance - should be evident in the cases discussed but I do not want to
reduce the discussion to these factors as a range of other matters are evi¬
dent that nicely illustrate many of the themes of this book. The cases dis¬
cussed show how these ideas work in practice, within particular research
and social settings, and allow the reader to identify a number of important
elements of how objects 'do cultural work'. These include the following:

• How objects are polysemic, meaning they contain a variety of messages
and (within limits) can be interpreted flexibly by their users.

• How objects within the home are not merely functional, but tied to
broader narratives about oneself, one's life and one's personal tastes.

• How objects are related to a person's life history and their current life
context.

• How objects, through the activity of home decoration, allow people to
grapple with larger questions about their personal values, outlooks
and desires.

(1) Helen: domestic technology, design and aesthetics. First, to a considera¬
tion of the case of Helen who was also discussed in an example used in
Chapter 1: the 'New England' style chair. A little more information about
Helen's life helps to contextualise what follows. Helen, her husband, and
two young girls live in a large house in one of the most prestigious sub¬
urbs in the city. Helen is articulate, informative and speaks with a tone of
clear-headed precision about her home, how she has come to decorate it,
and the objects she has filled it with. Throughout the interview Helen por¬
trays a high level of aesthetic competence - she has transformed her mate¬
rial tastes into a coherent and accountable whole to the extent that they
are manifest as harmonious ambience.

162

Objects in Action

The home is important for Helen; although she has a busy professional
life she is someone who places a high value on appropriate styles and
choices, to the extent that she works with an interior designer through
important phases of home renovation. In the accompanying survey, Helen
chooses 'clean and tidy', 'uncluttered' and 'comfortable' to describe her
ideal home. On the one hand such choices are surprisingly 'unaesthetic',
though they may in part be explained by Helen's busy professional life.
Nevertheless, these choices fit her preferred mode of presentation of an
'understated' style. Toward the end of our conversation I ask if she has a
favourite object:

I love my B&O stereo. I love that, I love that - I’m very happy with that. I often
wonder, again ultimately if we did that back room modern and kept the navy
theme, I might actually have it mounted on the wall and make it a feature itself.

Helen's 'B&O' (an abbreviation of the renowned brand 'Bang & Olufsen')
encapsulates the principles of technologised, abstract, modernist design.
Apart from the suggestion of a silver disc shape, it presents as a dark, rec¬
tangular object in a design style that could be considered avant-garde,
given contemporary designs for stereo systems. Because of its minimalist
intention the 'B&O' does not look like a conventional stereo system.
Bearing in mind she already has an impressive range of original art in her
home, how could Helen contemplate making the stereo a feature by
mounting it on a wall? More to the point, why does Helen choose it as one
of her favourite things?

(2) Marie : kinship ties and memory. Helen's choices can be partly under¬
stood by studying a dissimilar example. For the purpose of contrast, take
the case of Marie, who lives nearby Helen in a mid-century house she is
currently renovating. Marie lists her occupation as 'home duties', her hus¬
band is in the insurance business, and, like Helen, she has been living in
her current house for two years. When I asked Marie about her choice of
favourite things she replies by listing two items:

Honestly, my favourite things would be my photos, those photos. I can hon¬
estly say the favourite piece that I have is the plate that I told you about...

During our tour of the house a little earlier in our interview, Marie had
pointed out the plate and commented to me:

That one we bought on the Left Bank in Paris about 20 years ago and we
bought it for about $5, and we were just so proud of this piece because we
were over there with no money and to spend $5 on a cup of coffee or a bread
roll was a big deal. So yes ... but we absolutely love that and actually we were
talking, one of my daughters was over on Friday night and she said ‘mum, do
you remember the day I cracked that?’ and anyway we had it mended and she
said ‘mum, you were upset and you got some boot polish and fixed it up so
that dad wouldn’t see it’ because that’s what mothers do.

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

163

A couple of important points of difference emerge upon a comparison of
how Marie and Helen have decorated their homes. The first hinges on the
dichotomy of warmth and coolness as flavours of decoration (Riggins,
1994). Helen is very much committed to decorating her home in soft, neu¬
tral, unobtrusive colours. The patterns she chose in consultation with her
interior designer were invariably pale green and blues. Helen's favourite
chair - discussed in Chapter 1 - is an exemplar to her and connotes this
cool style. She comments during our interview: 'To me that chair, that
sums up my idea. That's me. I love that. That sort of cream, neutral. New
England look'. Helen's choice of the 'B&O' as a favourite object is a man¬
ifestation of this desire for simplicity and neutrality in the technological
domain. We can see how Helen uses the chair and stereo to stand for her
values: part of herself is represented in the chair, and having the chair or
stereo in view reminds herself of 'who she is'. In comparison, one is struck
by the busier, audacious use of colour in Marie's home. The rich, deep
shade of pink used in her dining room suggests warmth and drama,
rather than the coolness and simplicity of Helen's home. In Marie's home,
the furniture is stained darker, the floors are polished in a dark oil that
Marie describes as 'old fashioned', and gold is frequently used in various
accessories including curtain rings, picture and photograph frames. When
I ask about her use of colour, Marie says: 'Well, I think colours are not so
sterile, are they? Therefore it gives more of a softness to it rather than the
harsh, plain colour'.

The other obvious difference is in the nature of the objects Marie and
Helen choose. Marie selects her family photographs and her sentimental
plate as most important; these are objects that signify family achieve¬
ments, kin relations and love. On this matter, David Halle (1993) provides
evidence that informal family photographs are very common in middle-
and working-class homes, that there is a trend toward informality in pho¬
tographs, and that clustering on tables or dressers is a common mode
of presentation. In contrast to Marie, Helen selects her 'B&O' stereo, an
object of design value and quality no doubt, but also a significant status
object. Much like the cachet of a prestige motor vehicle, possessing the
'B&O' attests to Helen's taste and appreciation of good design, but also
her ability to afford the good design. Having the 'B&O' also demonstrates
her competence across a range of aesthetic fields including art and tech¬
nology, which is reminiscent of the pattern of the omnivorous consumer
(see Peterson, 1992; Peterson and Kern, 1996). This comparison is not
meant to suggest that Helen is a status-seeking snob, and that Marie is
simply caring, good-hearted, and family oriented - the analysis cannot be
reduced to this. My interest is more in the different ways that people use
ideas about taste and material culture as resources, to continually find
and define themselves, and their place, in the world. The object thus
affords people to perform self. What seems more important than the
actual physical properties of what these interviewees choose to talk about -
the specific colour, or texture, or style, or object - are the means and

164

Objects in Action

resources they have for expressing these preferences and the relation of
these schemes to the process of narrative construction. The physical tastes
and preferences are thus merely the material elements of more interesting
cultural and social discourses, which can be imagined as embedded
'beneath' the talk of principles of taste and material culture. A final, strik¬
ing example - the case of Anna - illustrates this point.

(3) Anna: the dilemmas of high-end kitchen goods. Anna's oven is a con¬
tentious, problematic object. Its polysemic nature - a combination of mat¬
ters which seem to relate to style, context, price and role - necessitates
much work by Anna to convert the oven to something which can sit nat¬
urally and comfortably in her home. Anna's talk about the oven demon¬
strates the way aesthetic choices can relate to political values as well as to
the functional nature of objects; and how objects can offer frames through
which the nature of household relations is clarified. In renovating her
kitchen the task of balancing new, glossy surfaces with the traditional
structures and materials inherited with the historic home has been a chief
goal. Consequently, Anna's notion of what is aesthetically acceptable
hinges on generating this 'balance':

... we struggled over the style because we wanted it to fit in with the house,
which is 120 years old, um ... so we wanted the benefits of modern technol¬
ogy with a sympathy with the house, we ended up with the wooden cupboards
and um ... mimicking the old safe doors, to break that total timber look with the
stainless steel benches which are pretty utilitarian, but still I think actually
blend in ... I think it goes really well with the timber as well as being utilitarian,
so it’s not just utilitarian it’s the look that it creates which is a blend of sort of
modern practicality with traditional style.

The object in question here, the oven, is modern in appearance; though
its straight, solid styling also allows it to signify a sense of classicism
and authenticity above and beyond its stainless steel shine. It is a large
European-brand oven, priced at many thousands, made in stainless steel
and glass. The style of the oven is currently fashionable, though not yet
widely popular because of its cost and size, and the industrial connota¬
tions some consumers may assign to it. Its shape and lack of decorative
parts suggest an economy of design: an elegant sturdiness; but, its make
and materials denote European standards (at least as seen from the per¬
spective of the Australian consumer). This is an oven for those who are
aware of the aesthetics of food preparation and the role of cooking equip¬
ment in preparing good food. But rather than focus on its aesthetic quali¬
ties and status signifying capacities, in the following exchange Anna
represents her new oven through a range of frames, many of which are
non-aesthetic. What is apparent through this exchange is the psychic
work invested in the incorporation of the commodity object into a system
of meaning that is subjectively experienced, but built upon relationships
at a range of social levels:

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

165

Anna (A):

Interviewer (/ ):
A:

/:

A:

/:

A

/:

A

/:

/I:

/:

/I:

I:

A:

It’s almost kind of like an art piece because visually you
see it coming through that open space, and it fits in
with the house, and I guess it says something fairly tradi¬
tional, not necessarily that I espouse completely to those
ideals.

What message does it send?

Well, I guess something about the relationship of food and house¬
hold, and that's involved in nurturing ... there’s a lot of debate
about that actually ...

What about?

Well my partner’s very ... has a high input into domestic decisions
which is fairly unusual I gather after talking to the people who sell
commodities, they’ve had to take a negotiating role ...

So what is the debate about?

My partner liked it, he wanted it more than I did, I said, ‘I don’t
cook enough to justify this kind of oven, does this mean that you're
going to cook’?

So did he see it as an art piece?

No, I see it as an art piece because I don’t use it enough to justify
it.

How do you feel about an oven being commodified as an art piece?
To me, it's just a pragmatic resolution of ‘ok, I’m not going to hang
on to this one’, and it’s really nice looking and we do use it enough.
What sort of oven would you have gone for?

Something out of sight ... something smaller ... but considering
the pragmatics that this is a fairly large space, I mean if we're
going to use it, then it does balance the space and something
smaller would look ridiculous ... so against that I’ve got my sense
of balance and space ... those sorts of things are pretty important
as well as whether something is utilitarian or useful, beautiful
or ...

So you like the styling and the look?

Yeah yeah, it's just really if I spend that there’s a pressure
to ... you know, and I don’t see myself as someone traditional who
spends a lot of time cooking every night, but on the other hand I
do have a bit more time now and we’re spending more time urn ...
creating meals that are attractive and more of an art form than
something just to eat.

Through the course of this exchange we see both Anna, and the inter¬
viewer, seeking an understanding of how the oven is interpreted by Anna.
There is no straightforward answer, because the oven is pivotal in Anna's
account of the aesthetic, spatial and economic issues involved in renovating
the kitchen. In her first statement on the oven, Anna confirms that the
aesthetic qualities of the object are critical by suggesting the oven is 'kind of

166

Objects in Action

like an art piece'. However, this sparks a range of other issues to be
addressed, before Anna returns to her perception of the aesthetic qualities
of the oven at the end of the extract through ideas about spatial balance,
scale and beauty. Through the middle of the extract, and thinking through
her ideas about the object, we can see where Anna problematises the
purely aesthetic nature of the oven. She identifies how the oven is placed
within political issues related to gender roles in the family associated with
nurturing and domesticity, and how choosing the oven involves aspects
of compromise and power that need to be reconciled within her own rela¬
tionship with her partner. The crucial point to emphasise here is the way
Anna thinks through the object in the course of the conversation - within
a narrative framework it is deployed by her to explain and account for
a range of important issues. By weighing-up alternative accounts and
meanings for the researcher, Anna provides a narrative context for the
object, and accomplishes her personal account of taste within the setting
of the research interview. The object - elsewhere I have called these things
'epiphany objects' (Woodward, 2001) - allows Anna control of her narra¬
tive through the deployment of a concrete example, and in turn, emerges
from the interview as a key resource for the researcher to offer a synopsis
of her narrative.

Conclusion: a note on reflexive methodologies and
material culture

The data gathering process for the research cases reported above are not
without methodological dilemmas: management of the domestic setting
prior to the interview, and respondents saying what they perceive the
researcher wants to hear are issues that need to be considered. However,
there are two strong counterpoints that circumscribe the weight of these
matters. The first is that this impression management itself constitutes a
significant source of data (see also Lamont, 1992: 21). The aspirations peo¬
ple have for their home, and their ideal ways of presenting and talking
about their home and the objects inside it, are just as important as how
they might actually live in their home. The second point relates to the
astute use of other verifiable forms of data available to the researcher in
the domestic setting. For example, is the interviewee generally consistent
in their aesthetic and moral relations with the home? Is what the intervie¬
wee says about an object realistic given other cues in the home and the
interview? This need to fit object-relations into a larger picture of house¬
hold and interpersonal relations may explain why the case-study
approach is often used as an aid to the development of theory in socio¬
cultural accounts of consumption and lifestyle (Bennett et al., 1999;
Bourdieu, 1984; Lamont, 1992; Riggins, 1994).

Material Culture, Narratives and Social Performance

167

Perhaps more critically in terms of developing procedures for
proposing an interpretive account of taste, consumerism and material
culture, researchers should bear in mind how such an interpretive
account deals with methodological issues of truth and fiction, reality
and representation. Thus, should the interview data presented here be
seen as the literal, authentic truth of their relations with objects? To
what degree have the normative process of interviewing and the pres¬
ence of a researcher in their private, domestic space influenced
people's responses? Even more fundamentally - and problematically -
as Denzin (1997) asks, to what extent can researchers assume that sub¬
jects have unproblematic access to their own lived experience? In the
study of domestic material culture through face-to-face interviews, we
might even expect such potential problems to be heightened. Justifying
their taste using an explicit aesthetic rationale is difficult for many
people to accomplish.

The answer to each of the questions may well highlight a multitude of
epistemological quandaries that have the potential to challenge core
assumptions about the nature and purpose of social research. However,
this is not necessarily a problem but a strength that can be turned to the
theorists' advantage. In fact, it illuminates a crucial theoretical position
about taste, aesthetics and domestic material culture which is assisted by
the insights of reflexive ethnography and theories of social accountability
(Shotter, 1984). What these data demonstrate is how having taste is an
ongoing narrative accomplishment and part of a social performance, as
much as it is an objective, fixed form of cultural capital. In identifying and
narrativising their tastes for the researcher, the respondents account for
themselves, their home, and implicitly a universe of others through the
construction of a taste narrative. Talking about taste and aesthetic choice
with people in their homes offers opportunities for exploration of cul¬
tural, emotional and aesthetic meanings that can be manifested in domes¬
tic objects. The material culture discussed in the research interviews thus
affords an important role for the respondent: they allow abstract ideas
about style, taste and aesthetic preference to be concretised, affording
respondents opportunity to elaborate their narrative using material cul¬
ture. In turn, the strategy of focusing on household objects is also prof¬
itable for the researcher, as the objects respondents chose to talk about
signify some element of a person's aesthetic ideal.

The implications for research into aesthetic taste and material culture is
that ethnographic studies, conversation analysis and narrative analysis
can yield profitable insights. Judgements of taste and forms of aesthetic
expertise are reflexive accomplishments, based in talk and narrative con¬
struction, and are presented to visitors, guests and researchers alike, as
they are required. Even the most emptied-out, banal objects of modern
domestic material culture have a role to play.

168

Objects in Action

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

For introductory books which give thorough reviews of work on narratives see
C.K. Riessman’s book Narrative Analysis (1993). For a discursive approach to narrative
see John Shotter’s Social Accountability and Selfhood (1984), Shotter and Kenneth
J. Gergen's Texts of Identity (1989), and Jonathan Potter’s Representing Reality
(1996). Social performance is an emerging area in cultural sociology, but has been
around for longer in other disciplines. See any books by Richard Schechner on the
topic of performance - I found Performance Studies, An Introduction (2002) espe¬
cially useful to get a handle on core ideas and diverse approaches within performance
studies. Also see essays by Jeffery C. Alexander from the journal Sociological Theory
in 2004, and the book by Alexander et al. called Social Performance (2006) for a
cultural sociological development of the idea of performance. If you are interested in
reading more about the home and objects see Daniel Miller’s collection Home
Possessions (2001), Amos Rapoport's House Form and Culture (1969), and Madigan
and Munro (1996). For a completely anachronistic, pop-sociology account of home,
manners and self-presentation see Russell Lynes’ book The Tastemakers (1954). For
more advanced readers Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space ( 1 994[ 1958]) isn’t
only about homes, but is a stimulating philosophical piece on the phenomenology of
space that should kindle new thinking about the meaning of domestic spaces and the
objects we fill them with.

PART IV

CONCLUSION

Conclusion: Objects and Meaning in
Consumer Culture

Writing on adornment, Georg Simmel (1950) gets at the crux of psycho-
cultural processes related to people's use and display of a special class of
objects. Objects of adornment, Simmel observes, are generally of consid¬
erable value, or at least made to appear as though they are; for example,
a string of pearls, a diamond ring, a chunky gold wristwatch, a pretty pair
of shoes, or a pair of flashy sunglasses. The dynamic at play in the act
of adornment, Simmel finds, is the strangest of sociological processes.
Simmel had an uncanny knack of observing and unearthing such kernels
of sociological truth in the smallest and most trivial kinds of things.
Admittedly, the dynamics of fashion and stylisation have changed sub¬
stantially since Simmel's time, though his observations are always worth
considering for their poetic form of social explanation. He writes that
adornment is at once about 'being-for-oneself' and 'being-for-the-other'.
On the one hand to adorn oneself is an entirely selfish, competitive act
of trying to 'enlarge' one's ego by bringing attention and envy from
others. At the same time, it is an act which 'enlarges', or cultivates, social
solidarity. It is a 'gift' to others, even though it works at the other's
expense, by elevating the wearer of the adorning object. Viewers also offer
back a type of social gift - they observe and give attention to the person
who has adorned themselves. Though they may feel inferior, they have
the gratification of playing a part in the synthesis of the great convergent
and divergent forces: society and the individual. Such is the capacity of
objects of consumption.

The main thrust of this work has been to examine, compare and evalu¬
ate the major ways of approaching objects within social and cultural
theory, and within various domains of everyday practice. A substantial
portion of it is based in interpreting and representing modern social and
cultural theory and research. Formal, sometimes conventional, sociologi¬
cal assumptions bleed through repeatedly, though hopefully not exces¬
sively. Despite this disciplinary basis, the work is an endeavour to progress
a general, cultural understanding of objects which is both drawn from.

172

Conclusion

and useful across, disciplines including sociology, cultural anthropology,
consumer behaviour studies and environmental psychology. To date, the
nomenclature of 'material culture studies' has tended to encourage sym¬
pathetic research on the meaningful and constructive aspects of
people-object relations within cultural anthropology, cultural studies and
sociology. However, this work has presented exciting and provocative
work from a range of other fields, including consumer behaviour research
and a range of psychological sub-disciplines (like object-relations psycho¬
analytic theory) and cultural theory more generally. This conclusion
revises key concepts, summarises major conceptual frames in new ways,
and points to areas of future interest in studying people-object relations.
For the introductory reader this conclusion serves the purpose of revising
core material, but through a new synthesis. For the advanced reader, the
conclusion articulates and discusses a modest agenda for research into
material culture.

It should be clear to the reader - not only through the weight given to
certain matters, but the verve and energy devoted to them - that there are
a number of biases that reveal my own intellectual preferences for study¬
ing objects in culture. These predispositions can be summarised by three
abstract concepts: cultural , interpretive and pragmatic. It is hoped the way
these concepts are developed and applied will be clear to any reader who
has progressed to this point, though the section below points directly to
the meaning of each. First, the term 'cultural' refers to what might be
called the meaning-making affordances of objects - the symbolic capaci¬
ties objects offer to think through and about diverse aspects of social life in
such a way as to cultivate solidaristic as well as differentiating effects;
practical action in addition to reflection. Second, the term 'interpretive'
refers to a dual process of interpretation. In the first instance it refers to a
particular interest in the way individuals deal with, frame, negotiate and
understand objects, as well as the approach taken by social and cultural
researchers to 'discover' and report such relations. The nature of this
hermeneutical dialectic encourages researchers to think reflexively about
the social world, and the methods needed to adequately describe it.
Finally, 'pragmatic' refers to the fact that objects do things to people, and
people do things with objects. There is a type of intersubjectivity - yet to
be fully understood or investigated by researchers - between persons and
objects that makes materiality a fundamental platform, and media, of
sociality. Alexander's (2004b) model of cultural pragmatics is instructive
here on the broader meaning of the term 'pragmatic', highlighting its inte¬
gration of processes of cultural extension and psychological identification
in the continuous performance of the social.

A major component of this book has examined core traditions in social
theory that are useful for the study of objects as culture. Using the over¬
arching idea of meaning-making, it is worth looking back at each tradition
in order to generalise about their points of difference, strong suits and
weak points. The hegemonic position of Marxist and critical theory for

Conclusion

173

understanding objects and consumption has been noted within consumption
studies and material culture studies. The materialist analyses of the
Marxist approach emphasised the genuine lack of possibility of finding
meaning in objects. What's more, they suggested if individuals professed
to finding meaning, it was merely evidence of false consciousness and a
deficiency of critical awareness. Through the twentieth century, Marxist
accounts were refined, and more likely to take into account psychological
and psychoanalytic factors in their exploration of culture as an ideologi¬
cal construct continually reproduced by under-developed individuals
who were essentially cultural dopes. Such a view of objects amounted to
a warning that 'objects are not as they seem', that people's relationships
with them were self-deceptive and alienating, and constitutive evidence
of an 'insane society', to play with Erich Fromm's expression. Essentially,
this is a culturally reductive account, with a deterministic, anthropologi¬
cally naive and inflexible view of the human capacity for agency, imagi¬
nation and cultural creativity. Seeing objects as defined principally
through technical, economic concepts - such as a 'commodity' - means
this view cannot elaborate a useful account of the material as culture.

Structural and semiotic accounts of objects offer a more sophisticated
theoretical ensemble for capturing meaning-making processes with
objects. Developed principally through the writings of Saussure and Levi-
Strauss, this oeuvre highlighted how cultural objects are relationally
ordered, symbolic, and how they can be understood within larger
language-like systems of cultural meaning which have communicative
capacity akin to language. This body of work affords an opportunity to
develop an autonomous model of cultural communication which doesn't
rely on forces such as the 'means of production' to explain how objects
embody meanings. It offers therefore, a much more robust and nuanced
model of how material things circulate within systems of cultural mean¬
ing. In the later writings of Barthes and Baudrillard this account of how
objects embody and represent meanings, affording a range of cultural
communications, was applied to the study of advanced consumer
societies. What we have in this skein of literature is an important body of
theoretical material on the autonomous communicative capacities of
objects - a recommendation for its enduring relevance for material culture
studies. What is not so evident in this body of theoretical tools, however, are
ways for studying objects as they move away from systems of communica¬
tion, to frames of meaning, individual interpretation and human intersub¬
jectivity. The final major body of theoretical resources this book has
considered deals with this capacity of objects. Combined with the struc¬
tural and semiotic tradition which focuses on the internal, relational
ordering of objects, this more deeply cultural view offers a powerful
account of the moral signatures and imperatives of cultural classifications
of objects, the processes of singularisation and subjectification that social
actors use to make objects meaningful, and the ways in which objects
are 'de-commodified' through a range of psycho-cultural strategies. To

174

Conclusion

summarise, such accounts are: (i) processual in that they emphasise the
trajectories of objects through diverse spaces and times of human activity, (ii)
transformative in that they show how objects are able to be continuously
shaped and re-shaped by their human users through the interplay of physi¬
cal and symbolic manipulation, and (iii) contextual in that they show how
objects are situated within broader discourses, narratives, myths and frames
that assist in the construction of cultural meaning and its interpretation.

The latter section of the book demonstrates how objects become crucial
parts of social and psycho-social patterns and relations, within a range of
important fields, including status, honour and distinction; the formation
and maintenance of self, social and ego identity; and the narrativisation
and performance of self. Above all, what these sections show is that there
can never really be one account or interpretation of an object. To take an
example used in the previous chapter, an object like a new oven can be
about one's aesthetic taste and status, or about the family and sharing
meals, or about spending a lot of money on a kitchen renovation, or about
dealing with one's partner's needs, or about the personal anxiety or guilt
sometimes associated with spending large sums of money on consumer
goods. Any one account - an interpretation - will always be different to
another, by virtue that is comes from someone who has a different history
and biography, or is articulated by the same person on a different day, in
unique contexts. A material thing thus has a range of different potential
roles or 'affordances' (Gibson, 1986), each dependent upon a different
embedding narrative - its uses are not limited by its physical features, or
design. As Harre (2002: 30) notes: 'if material things become social objects
in so far as they are embedded in narratives then the question of whether
this is the same or a different social object depends on whether and how
this is the same or different story'.

While much of this book dwells on domains and examples from within
consumption studies, it is important to remember that materiality can be
approached through frames other than consumption, and that consump¬
tion is about more than relations with objects and materiality. In addition,
consumption is about more than identity construction and expression,
and social distinction. Many of the examples used need to be considered
with this point in mind: they are partial accounts of social relations that
seek to understand people-object relations within the broad field of con¬
sumption, frequently through logics embedded in a consumption studies
paradigm. Despite this specificity, what is inescapable is the capacity of an
object to do cultural work. It may sometimes appear as if people have
selective, fleeting relationships with objects that are made on their own
terms: people routinely look at them, pick them up, become entangled
with them, use them, dispose of them and move on. In fact, a more accu¬
rate and telling observation may be the contrary: in ways that many
people never know objects have a type of hold on them. In the end, objects
cease to be external to the individual: objects are their constitution, their

Conclusion

175

subjectivity. Far from being a sign of human weakness, self-deception or
oppression by the dead hand of a malevolent social system, the patterns
of relationships between people and objects suggest people actively seek
out - and require - these bonds with objects. Explaining the nature of
these attachments and affiliations is why material culture studies is valu¬
able for understanding the crux of the social: the balancing of individuals
with society; of emotion, embodiment, meaning and action, with collec¬
tive values, cultural discourses and solidarities.

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Index

actant 15

actant-network theory 12, 15, 152
adornment 171

Adorno, Theodor see Horkheimer,
Max

aestheticisation of everyday life
23-4, 136

Ahuvia, Aaron 150
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 81, 92-4,

106, 109

on Giacometti's Standing
Woman 106

and social performance 154, 168
on subjectification and
materialisation 107
alienation 38

Altman, Irwin and Gauvain,
Mary, 156

Amould, Eric see Wallendorf,
Melanie
artefacts 15, 16
Attfield, Judy 31
Auslander, Leora 132

'bad', notion of 86-8
Bachelard, Gaston 155-56, 168
Barthes, Roland 4, 67
The Eiffel Tower 72-3, 83
and mass culture 68
and myth 69
Mythologies 4, 58, 68, 83
and 'the new Citroen' 70-1
and objectification of capitalist
mythology 68
and plastic 72
and semiology 68
and de Saussure Ferdinand, 68
and structuralism 68
and toys 71

Bataille, Georges 19
Baudrillard, Jean 28, 31, 44, 73, 87
The Consumer Society 73
and consumption 74
and exchange value 76
and gifts 76
and lack 141-42
and sign value 74-5, 76
and symbolic exchange 76
and symbolic exchange value 76
and symbolic value 74
The System of Objects 73, 75, 141
and utility 76
Belk, Russell 21, 144, 150
on the extended self 144—45
Bennett, Andy and
Dawe, Kevin 109
Bennett, Tony 159
bibles 10-12

Blumer, Herbert 118, 126
and collective

selection 129-30
and fashion 128-30
and Kant, Immanuel 130
Boas, Franz 18, 67
and life group arrangement 18
The Body Shop 51
Bonnes, Mirilia 157
bonnes a penser ix, 67,

see also Fevi-Strauss, Claude
Bourdieu, Pierre 6, 119
and aesthetic competence 6
and bourgeois mode of cultural
consumption 121
Distinction 119, 122-3, 124
and habitus 121-22
and the home 158
and Kant, Immanuel 6, 117, 199
and natural judgement 120

186

Index

Bourdieu, Pierre con t.
and objective taste 123
and structuralism 122
and studies of taste 6
and taste economies 120
and taste as universal
practice 119-20

and working class aesthetics 117
and working-class mode of
cultural consumption 121
bricoleur 66-7, 78, see also
Levi-Strauss, Claude
Butler, Rex 73

Campbell, Colin 60, 137, 141
and The Spirit of Modem
Consumerism 142-43
Carson, Rachel 50
categorical symbols 114
categories 89
cathexis 139
chairs 6-8

Chapman, Jonathan 150
Chodorow, Nancy 138, 140
on fundamental psychoanalytic
processes 140
Citroen DS19 70-1
classifications, cultural elements
of 88-9 see also Durkheim,
Emile and Mauss, Marcel
moral elements of 89
social nature of 90
collage aesthetic 79
commodity 15, deceptiveness of
the 39, see also Marx, Karl;
see also decommodification;
see also Lukacs, Georg
computer 42-3, 92-4
consumer behaviour studies
21-2, 27

psychological dimensions
of 21-2
consumption
and postmodernism 23-5,

135-36

Corrigan, Peter 103
Cote, James 136

and identity capital 136-7
cross-cultural attachments to
objects 22, see also Wallendorf,
Melanie and Amould, Eric
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and
Rochberg-

Halton, Eugene 21, 31
on favourite objects 146-47
and objects in the home 157-58
cultural preference mapping 121, 123
cultural sociology viii, 92
culture as ideology 38
'cut ups' 79, see also Hebdige, Dick

Davis, Fred 125

Dawe, Kevin see Bennett, Andy
decommodification 29, 103 see also
commodity
decoration 163
Denzin, Norman 167
department stores 115-16
disgust 87
distinction 113
Dittmar, Helga 16, 150
Douglas, Mary and Isherwood,
Baron ix, 16, 25-6, 95-8
and consumption and
meaning-making 95-6
The World of Goods 95-8
Duchamp, Marcel 78, 105-6
Durkheim, Emile 84, 88, 95,
see also Mauss, Marcel
categories 89
moral force of 89
classifications 88-9
social nature of 90-1
Elementary Forms of
Religious Life 89-90
Primitive Classification 88-9
sacred and profane 90-1, 93M

The Eiffel Tower 72-3
Eco, Umberto 57

Index

187

Elizabeth 1 114 and consumption
and status 114—15
Elliott, Anthony 150
Emmison, Michael see Woodward,
Ian

exchange value 76
expressive symbols 114

false consciousness 36
fashion 123, 124-26
and differentiation
and integration 125
and imitation 124-25
and social classes 125, 126
favourite objects 22, 146-49
Featherstone, Mike 23-4
and aestheticisation of everyday
life 23-4

fetishised objects 42
Forty, Adrian 132
Foucault, Michel 5, 94
Discipline and Punish 5, 13
and panopticon 13
Frankfurt School 40
and critical theory 40
Freud, Sigmund 138-39
Fromm, Erich 44-7
and acquisitiveness 46
and pathology of
normalcy 45
The Sane Society 45-6
To Have or To Be 46
Frow, John 122

Galbraith, John Kenneth 49
affluent society 49-50
and dependence effect 50
and luxury 50
Gauvain, Mary

see Altman, Irwin
Geertz, Clifford 5
Gergen, Kenneth 168
Giacometti, Alberto 106
Standing Woman 106
Gibson, James 174

gifts 76, 91-2

Goffman, Erving 114, 117, 134
on categorical symbols 114
on expressive symbols 114
on status objects 114
Gomez, Lavinia 150
'good', notion of 86-8
goods 15

Gronow, Jukka 118
guillotine 94-5

habitus 121-22
Halle, David 126, 160
and art in the home 160
Harre, Rom 28-9, 152
functional and expressive
orders of objects 134
and narrative 174
Hebdige, Dick 30, 31,

77, 83, 90

and collage aesthetic 79
and 'cut ups' 79
and fashion 77-80
motor scooter 30-1
and safety pins 66
and style 77
Held, David 56
Heskett, John 31
Hodkinson, Paul 150
Holt, Douglas B. 109
home 155
and decoration 163
and the display of art 160
and memory 155-56
and public /private space 156
and psychology 155-58
and taste 158-61
case studies 161-66
Horkheimer, Max and Adorno,
Theodor 41-4, 56
The Culture Industry 43
Dialectic of Enlightenment 41-3
and fetishisation 42-3
and negative dialectic 42
and technology 41-2

188

Index

identity 134
as capital 136-37
definition 134-35
and objects 137
social and subjective
dimensions 135
introjection 140

Isherwood, Baron see Douglas,
Mary

James, William 145
Journal of Material Culture 25
judgement 87

Kamptner, Laura 147-48
Kant, Immanuel 116, 130
on aesthetic judgement 117-18
on disinterested judgement

117- 18

and Pierre Bourdieu 7, 116, 119
on pure taste 116
on reflective taste 118
on sensus communis

118- 19, 130-31

Kasser, Tim, and Kasser, Virginia
G. 149

Kellner, Douglas 40, 56
kitchens 102
Klein, Melanie 139
whole and part objects 139
Kleine III, Robert E. 21
Koons, Jeff 106

Kopytoff, Igor 15, 16, 27, 102-4
and object biographies 30, 102
and object paths and
diversions 104

processual nature of objects 103
and singularisation 104

lack 87, 140, see also Baudrillard,
Jean

Lamont, Michele 90, 126
langue 62-3, see also de Saussure,
Ferdinand

Lash, Scott and Urry, John 24-5
late capitalism and consumption 24

Lawrence, Roderick 157
Leiris, Michel 105
Levi-Strauss, Claude ix
and bonnes a penser ix, 67
and bricoleur 66-7
and context of objects 65-6
Myth and Meaning 64, 83
and scientism 65
The Savage Mind 65
and science of the concrete 66
Totemism 67

life group arrangement 18
lifestyle 23

Lightfoot, Cynthia 144
Livingstone, Sonia see Lunt, Peter
Lloyd Jones, Peter 132
Lloyd Wright, Frank 104
Lukacs, Georg 38-40, 56
and reification 39
Lunt, Peter and Livingstone,
Sonia 31

Lupton, Deborah and Noble,
Greg 16
Lury, Celia 16
Lynes, Russell 168
Lyotard, Jean Francois 118

Madigan, Ruth 160-61
Marcuse, Herbert 47-8
One Dimensional Man 47
and needs,

true and false 47-8
and one-dimensional society 47
and pathology 48
Marx, Karl 19
Capital 35-7, 56
and commodities 19-20,

35-7, 85

and exchange-value 38
and materialism 36
objects as congealed labour
37, 38, 85
and use-value 38
material culture
contextual dimensions of 100
definition 3

Index

189

material culture cont.
reading material culture
4-5, 58-60

material culture studies ('MCS')
analyst and actor
viewpoints 3-4
and consumption studies
5, 23, 26

definition 3-4, 14
and identity 10
interdisciplinary nature
3-4, 26, 27
and narratives 6, 10
and poststructural theory 5
principles of 3-4, 26-31
materialisation 107
materialism 54-5
materialist 55
materialistic 148-49
Mauss, Marcel 88
classifications 88-9
The Gift 91

Primitive Classification 88-9
see also Durkheim, Emile
Michael, Mike 26
McCracken, Grant 114, 141
on historical aspects of
consumption 114-16
on objects and displaced
meanings 142
Miles, Steven 16, 96
Miller, Daniel 25, 28, 97, 141, 168
Material Culture and Mass
Consumption 25-6, 98
and Tilley, Christopher 25, 31
and anthropologies of
consumption 98
and kitchens 102, 159
and shopping 102
Miller, Peter and Rose, Nikolas
48-9

and mobilising the consumer 49
Miller, William Ian 87
'Mods' 79
motor cycle 143-44
motor scooter 30-1

motor vehicle 44, 103
Mukerji, Chandra 132
myth 69

narrative 151-53

Noble, Greg see Lupton, Deborah

object(s) 3, 14
and affordance 174
and alienation 38
as congealed labour 37, 38
as deceptive 37, 39
and desire 140-43
and false consciousness 36
functional and expressive
134, 172

and the home 155
as icons 107
and identity 133, 137
and interpretation and
life-course 146—47
and narrative 151-53,

163-67, 174

and object biography 29-31, 102
paths and diversions of 104—5
and possession 135
and pragmatism 172
and social agency 55
and social performance 152-55
and sociation 20-1
singularisation of 104
as talisman 144
as universal symbols 107
and youth culture 143—44
object-relations theory 137-40

Packard, Vance 49
parole 62-3, see also de Saussure,
Ferdinand
Pearce, Susan M. 19
Pels, Dick 152
performance 151
Pitt Rivers (A.H. Lane Fox Pitt
Rivers) 18-9
Pitt Rivers Museum,

University of Oxford 18

190

Index

plastic 72
possession 135
Potter, Jonathan 168
projection 140
punk fashion 77-80

Rapoport, Amos 168
Richins, Marsha L. 148
and materialism 149
Riesmann, Catherine K. 168
Rochberg-Halton, Eugene

see Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi
Rodin, August
The Burghers of Calais 106
Rose, Nikolas 22
'readymades' 78, see also
Duchamp, Marcel

sacred and profane 90-1, 93-4
safety pin 65-6
de Saussure, Ferdinand 61
Course in General Linguistics 61
and diachronic studies of
language, 61
and language as a social
system 62

and langue and parole 62-3, 80
and linguistics 61
and semiology 63
and signs 63
and synchronic studies
of language 61
Schechner, Richard 168
Schumacher, E.F. 50
Small is Beautiful 50
Schor, Juliet B. 56
Schultz, Susan E. 21,150
semiology 63
shopping 102
Shotter, John 168
signs /signifier/ signified 58, 63
sign value 74-5, 76
Simmel, Georg 19
and adornment 171
and fashion 21, 124-26

Simmel, Georg Cont.
and imitation 124—25
and postmodern consumer
culture 125-26
proliferation of objects 20
and style 21
singularisation 29, 104
Slater, Don 31
Smith, Adam 19
Smith, Philip 60, 94-5, 109
and the guillotine 94-5
and structuralism 60-1
sneakers 59-60, 96-7
Sombart, Werner 19
Sparshott, Francis 86, 87
Starck, Philippe 51
and anti-materialist
manifesto 52-3
and design goods 51-2
status tokens 115
structuralism 60, 85
and determinism 64
key principles of

structuralism 60-1
see also Barthes, Roland;
Levi-Strauss, Claude;
de Saussure, Ferdinand
structural hermeneutic 92
style 21, 77-8
'Mod' style 79
punk style 77-80
'straight' style 78
subjectification 29, 99, 107
Swedberg, Richard 106, 109
on The Burghers of Calais 106
symbolic exchange value 76
symbolic value 74
systems of transformations 61

taste (aesthetic) 86, 91, 116
and Bourdieu, Pierre 119
common sense of
118-9, 130-1
pecuniary canon of 127,
see also Veblen, Thorstein

Index

191

taste (aesthetic) cont.
pure taste 116,

see also Kant, Immanuel
taste economies 120
as universal practice 119-20
technology 41
aestheticised 161-63
things 15

Tilley, Christopher 25, 31
totemism 67
toys 71

transitional objects 139, see also
Winnicott D.W.
transference 140
trickle-down effect 115, 125
Turner, Bryan 77

Urry, John see Lash, Scott
utility 76

Veblen, Thorstein 117, 126-28
and social comparison 127
pecuniary canon of taste 127
Vera, Hernan 156
verandah 156

Wallendorf, Melanie

and Amould, Eric 21-22
Warner, Lloyd 117
Wedgwood, Josiah 115
Werner, Carol M. 157
Willis, Paul 143-44, 150
on the 'motor-bike boys' 143-44
Winnicott, D.W. 139-40, 150
potential space 140
transitional objects 139-40
Woodward, Ian 16,
and Emmison, Michael 91